Carlton Williams was in his late teens when the voices came to him. Slowly they filled his head. By his late 20s they told him the Jamaican recording artist Shaggy had ripped him off. His schizophrenia convinced him he had written hit songs and now Shaggy claimed them as his own: Shaggy owed him royalties – big time.
In his 20s and 30s he tried self-medicating with alcohol to escape the frustration. When the booze wore off the voices came back. Years went by in a blur and he found himself in Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. He felt isolated and poorly equipped to deal with even the basics of life: No home, no job, no future.
He needed something close to a miracle. Mr. Williams says he found it in an unlikely place – Toronto's George Brown College.
Two years ago the staff at CAMH suggested he try a new kind of course at George Brown as the first step to reintegrating into the community and a near-to-normal life. It would mean nine months as a student, learning what it takes to be an assistant cook and being taught basic life skills. In the end would be a paying job and a chance to build a productive future.
It has been 15 months since he graduated. Mr. Williams, 43, does indeed have a job; it is with Pinnacle Catering, helping prepare the pizzas and salads served in the Air Canada Centre's Skyboxes. He has a home, sharing a two-bedroom apartment in an assisted living building. He has a new start on life.
And it is all because of that course at George Brown, he says.
Carlton Williams is working at his full-time job in the Pinnacle Catering kitchen at the Air Canada Centre on September 24, 2009. Jennifer Roberts for The Globe and Mail
Helping those with serious mental health problems and addictions has become part of George Brown's mandate, says Tony Priolo. He was chief organizer for the assistant cook extended training program when it was launched in April, 2004, and is now manager of the construction craft workers extended training program.
It was created in April, 2007, to teach the basics of construction work to the same too-often overlooked community.
“The goal is to help reintegrate those with very serious mental health and addiction problems back into society,” he says. “There are enormous challenges. Many come straight from institutions; some are living in shelters. What we do is try to re-instill confidence and give them the basics they need to create and maintain an independent life.”
Jeff Zona, 40, says he can not heap enough praise on the staff and the two-year-old construction workers' course. A drug addict since he was 21, he started injecting cocaine and when that became too expensive moved onto crack. Disastrous personal relationships, an up-and-down flirtation with well-paying jobs and an all-consuming search for the next high eventually found him living in Toronto's Seaton House shelter.
Last year he heard about George Brown's construction workers' program – he isn't sure but thinks it was workers at Seaton House who suggested it. He signed up, graduated in July and has been working with a renovation and restoration company even since.
“I now have a room of my own; I am starting to get my confidence back and I am trying to re-establish a new network of friends and contacts,” he says. “I have to say I resisted the teachers at first. I thought it was like a regular school where they didn't really care about you as a person.
“But they did things like take me to the hospital when I needed blood tests done; they stayed with me to make sure I was all right. For the first time in years I had people who really cared about me.”
If there is a downside to the courses it is a constant fight for funding and the limitations that places on class size, says Mr. Priolo. Each course can only handle 30 students and there are about 100 applicants for each class, he says.
Those accepted face no costs for tuition or supplies. They receive disability support payments from various agencies during the nine months it takes to complete the assistant cook course and the six months for the construction workers' program. In addition to formal training, there are lessons in the basics, such as how to socialize, keep an apartment room clean and tidy, write a résumé and fill in job applications.
“These are things they need to know if they are going to be able to reintegrate in daily life,” says Mr. Priolo.
Each also has an internship to gain hands-on experience of not just the work but also the workplace.
“For the cooking graduates, somewhere between 70 and 80 per cent have been able to find permanent work when they graduate,” Mr. Priolo says. “The construction course is newer and this year the industry has been affected by the recession, so the numbers finding jobs are somewhat lower.
“In truth we don't have enough money to track them when they leave us.”
The George Brown staff is as aware as the students that they graduate with only a tenuous hold on a normal life. Their starting pay is usually just $10 an hour – minimum wage – and the health issues and addictions that launched them on a downward spiral have not disappeared.
What does the future hold for Mr. Williams? First, he would like to get some sort of government disability to augment his $10-an-hour pay.
“Then I would like to get a place of my own and not have to live here where they supervise you all the time,” he says.
And if he got that regular financial support, would he stay with cooking?
“What I would really like to do is to return to my career of songwriting,” he says.
