Last year marked a turning point for Kim Poirier. She lost $900 a month in benefits after her son turned 18, and her landlord liquidated his assets, evicting his tenants.
Her new place swallowed up 70 per cent of her and her partner's combined income in rent, but at least they were able to keep their 10-year-old German shepherd.
But the house they live in now is also up for sale, and Poirier and her partner, who receives worker's compensation, can't find an affordable place to rent in or around the southern Vancouver Island town of Sooke that will accept pets.
The couple earns too much to qualify for help from the provincial government, said Poirier, and because they're not working, they don't qualify for a government renter's subsidy. Social housing is also not an option, because only cats or small dogs are allowed.
"We're on the verge of being homeless," says Poirier. "For this month we have a roof—I don't know about next month."
Homelessness Rising
Poirier's is one of more than 2.7 million households—nearly one-quarter of Canadian households—"paying too much of their income to keep a roof over their heads," according to a recent report released by the Calgary-based Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership.
The report, called Shelter: Homelessness in a Growth Economy , pointed to poverty as the leading cause of homelessness in Canada.
Whereas single males once dominated homeless shelters, homeless people today include women, children, students, immigrants, the mentally ill, seniors, low-income families, and even the "formerly middle class."
"Many are simply working people and families who need affordable shelter," wrote author Gordon Laird, Media Fellow emeritus at the foundation
Laird cited a 2005 federal government estimate that 150,000 Canadians are homeless. However, street counts of homeless people have grown, in Calgary alone rising 740 per cent between 1994 and 2006. Some non-governmental sources estimate that Canada's homeless population may be as high as 200,000 to 300,000.
In 1998, the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee (TDRC), co-founded by Toronto "street nurse" Cathy Crowe, declared homelessness a national disaster. Over the last decade the situation has worsened, said Crowe, who has been working with homeless people for almost 20 years.
Canada has not had a national affordable housing program since the last program was cut in 1993, and now "people remain homeless a lot longer," said Crowe.
"The death rates have gone up, there are tuberculosis cases, more families and children are becoming homeless, more seniors, more people with disabilities, and two cities have had to set up palliative care components in shelters."
Calling the numbers "staggering," Crowe said there's probably not a single community in Canada today that isn't experiencing some aspect of homelessness.
Shelters, Housing Both Needed
Laird's report cited a lack of national leadership and policy over the last decade to address homelessness and affordable housing. Instead of long-term strategic investment, the government focused on short-term solutions such as shelters and other emergency services.
Canada allocated $753 million to the National Homelessness Initiative (NHI) in 1999, and named Claudette Bradshaw Minister Responsible for Homelessness. Edmonton East MP Peter Goldring, opposition critic at the time, said even Bradshaw herself knew the homeless funding would be "directed towards non-profit groups to make a profit."
A lot of "poor economics" went into the utilization of the NHI funds, says Goldring. In Edmonton for example, a 62-bed shelter called Urban Manor had been fully operating in a rented building under a budget of $500,000 a year. The $4 million grant money was used to construct an architecturally designed building that provided only 12 additional beds.
As a result, operating costs jumped from $500,000 to $750,000 a year, while the homeless count rose from 980 in 2001 to 2,200 in 2004.
"Their budget actually shot up 50 per cent in the process," says Goldring, adding that the move toward making non-profits profitable "happened from one end of the country to another."
"The homeless numbers went up because they weren't building homes, they were building shelters," says Goldring. "They had no intention of building homes."
Both shelters and housing are needed, according to Crowe. She said the only money for affordable housing that has been leveraged since 1993 was Bill C-48 in 2005, under a Liberal/NDP budget deal.
"That program has meant that there are some units here and there being built across the country with some federal dollars, but the problem is it's not enough and it leaves too much up to the provinces to do so."
Ontario's share of the $1.4 billion allocation was $392.5 million. The money stayed in a trust fund, "no strings attached," said Crowe, while for 14 months Premier McGuinty argued with the federal government about an unrelated matter—trying to get a better fiscal deal for Ontario.
Then in March 2007 the province announced a housing allowance program that effectively means, according to the TDRC website, that 60 per cent of this federal money meant to build affordable housing will be used instead for rent subsidies.
The homeless initiative, twice extended, was set to expire in March 2007. As a result of national protests, Crowe said the new federal government renewed it and renamed it the Homelessness Partnering Strategy. However, there is "no housing in it," she said. "It's a homelessness disaster relief program."
Stopping the Neglect
To combat homelessness, Laird's report calls for a national strategy that provides income security, with, at a minimum, welfare, shelter, and social assistance indexed to inflation. It also recommends providing rent supplements and developing alternatives to traditional home ownership and affordable housing, including mixed income cooperatives and rent-to-own options with incentives for municipalities, builders, and households.
Laird said serving the "core" homeless population of 150,000 costs taxpayers $4.5 to $6 billion annually. This includes healthcare, criminal justice, social services, and emergency shelter costs.
The report said government's response to homelessness has been "conflicted, sometimes bordering on outright neglect," and "has exacerbated efforts to reduce poverty in Canada."
"If neglected, housing insecurity will continue to spread across Canada, fueling the relatively new phenomena of suburban homelessness, accelerating urban decay, and, in the face of record-setting housing prices, ensure the general economic erosion of millions of Canadians," concluded the report.
Meanwhile, people in Poirier's situation are facing the reality of today's market rents.
"I look on usedvictoria.com every day, and probably 40 to 50 per cent of those listings are people who are desperate for affordable housing. When rarely something comes up that is less than $1,000 a month, the competition is fierce," said Poirier.
Citing Canada's and Alberta's fiscal surplus, Crowe said there is enough money to fund a national housing program.
"We are one of only a few countries in the world that doesn't have a national federal investment in building affordable housing, and it shows," she said.
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