02) CANADA'S HOUSING PROBLEM CAN BE SOLVED

 

By Kimball Cariou

 

             Canadians frequently criticize attacks against human rights around the world, and often with good reason. But one of the worst global human rights abuses is also a huge problem here in this country. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifically includes the right to housing - but at least 30,000 people in Canada on any given day are homeless. Every year, homelessness affects about 200,000 people across the country, and this crisis is now estimated to cost $7 billion annually.

 

            A landmark report on the issue paints "a picture of a disaster in communities across the country," according to Tim Richter, one of the authors ofState of Homelessness in Canada: 2013, and the president of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness.

 

            "In a natural disaster, the loss of housing or life happens because of a fire or flood or something like that," he told the media following the mid-June release of the report. "In the unnatural disaster of homelessness, the same things are happening, but it's happening because of poverty, disability, addiction, mental illness and trauma."

 

            Natural disasters are met with emergency response plans to get people back to their normal lives, notes Richter, but the response to homelessness is "stuck in crisis mode".

 

            The study found that on any given night, at least 30,000 people are in homeless or domestic violence shelters, sleeping outside or temporarily housed in places like prisons or hospitals.

 

Another 50,000 are the "hidden homeless," couch-surfing with friends or family because they have nowhere else to go.

 

            A joint effort by the Canadian Homelessness Research Network and the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, this is the first attempt by researchers to quantify the problem on a Canada-wide scale, going beyond the "homeless counts" conducted in many communities.

 

            Co-author Tanya Gulliver taught the "Homelessness in Canadian Society" course at Ryerson University from 2003 to 2010. A key figure in theToronto Disaster Relief Committee, Gulliver writes that "many more Canadians are facing challenges in paying their rent and meeting other basic survival needs, including food."

 

            "I've been working in the homelessness sector for nearly 20 years," says Gulliver, who is excited to be able to quantify homelessness in a meaningful way.

 

            "Yet, even this report is, in a few places, only our best guess," she points out. "It's an informed, well‑researched best guess, but the lack of a common definition around homelessness, varying methodologies for counting homeless people and a lack of funding and support for research and evaluation means we are trying to take different sets of numbers and make them all match up. And those numbers show us that homelessness is affecting more Canadians than we might realize."

 

            The 30,000 nightly figure, she says, includes 2,880 unsheltered (outside in cars, parks, on the street); 14,400 staying in emergency shelters; 4,464 provisionally accommodated (homeless but in hospitals, prison or interim housing); and 7,350 staying in women's anti-violence shelters.

 

            Homelessness is often a very short experience. About 29% of people in this category spend only one night in a shelter and are able to resolve their homelessness crisis with minimal supports.

 

            At the other end of the spectrum, 4,000 to 8,000 people are chronically, long-term homeless, and 6,000 to 22,000 experience repeated episodes of homelessness over a lifetime. While these are just one-seventh of the total homeless population in Canada, they use about 50% of the emergency shelter spaces and consume the most resources (including emergency services and hospital treatment).

 

            "When we think about how much cheaper it is to provide rent supplements, supportive and social housing - not to mention the moral issues of warehousing people in shelters - it's really time that we started focusing on the solutions," says Gulliver.

 

            Other research across North America has repeatedly found that homelessness is cheaper to fix than to ignore or deal with on an emergency basis.

 

            In a 2005 study comparing four Canadian cities, Steve Pomeroy estimated that it costs $66,000 to $120,000 per person per year for institutional responses to homelessness (e.g. prison, psychiatric hospitals), compared with $13,000 to $18,000 for supportive housing.

 

            A Simon Fraser University study in 2006 estimated it costs $55,000 per person per year to leave someone homeless in British Columbia, versus a housing and support cost of $37,000.

 

            In 2007, the Calgary Homeless Foundation estimated that chronically homeless people consume emergency services averaging $134,000 per year. The Foundation has been able to provide housing and support to chronically homeless people for $10,000 to $25,000 per year, in effect saving huge amounts of tax dollars.

 

            Gulliver argues that some cities are making progress. Vancouver has had a 66% reduction in street homelessness since 2008; Edmonton saw a 30% reduction in overall homelessness since 2008; and Toronto reports a 51% decrease in street homelessness since 2006. Alberta has provincial plan which has led to a 16% province‑wide reduction since 2008.

 

            But the reality can be more complicated. In Vancouver, for example, the shocking rise in street homelessness became a hot button topic by the late 1990s, finally compelling city council to take steps to provide more temporary shelter spaces. But the overall numbers of people who lack affordable housing in the most expensive city in Canada remain stubbornly high.

 

            On a wider scale, the number of people in "core housing need" across Canada is huge, estimated at over 3 million by the Wellesley Institute. The situation is most dire in impoverished First Nations communities, which frequently lack decent schools or even clean drinking water.

 

            The State of Homelessness report makes recommendations to improve the situation, calling on communities and governments to develop plans to end homelessness, and to increase the supply of affordable housing. Another recommendation calls for a "housing-first" approach to ending homelessness.

 

            The study points to initiatives such as the At Home/Chez Soi pilot program in five cities. Backed by $110 million in federal funding from the Mental Health Commission, this program aims to get homeless people into subsidized housing, and then provide services to address their underlying problems.

 

            The Harper government's latest federal budget includes $253 million annually over five years, which must be matched by the provinces, to be spent on new construction, renovation, home ownership assistance, rent supplements, shelters and homes for battered spouses.

 

            The budget also commits to five more years of funding for the Homelessness Partnering Strategy, at $119 million a year, lower than the previous $135 million a year, with a "housing first" emphasis as discussed above.

 

            But is this all just window dressing to obscure the government's true agenda?

 

            Most anti-poverty advocates and housing researchers point to a long-term withdrawal from social housing by the federal government as the origin of the growth in homelessness. Liberal and Conservative governments alike during the 1980s and '90s slashed support for cooperatives and other social housing options. Canada and the U.S. are now virtually the only major capitalist countries with no national housing strategy. The downloading of federal responsibilities left provinces and municipalities holding the bag for vital social services. Provincial governments froze or reduced social assistance, just as market housing costs began to skyrocket.

 

            This deadly mix of policy changes led to today's crisis, with millions of people stuck in unaffordable, cramped, unhealthy housing situations.

 

            The argument that "we can't afford" decent housing doesn't stand up to real scrutiny. A country which can budget $70 billion over the next two decades for fighter-bomber jets and massively armed warships could surely decide to make housing a priority instead.

 

            Advocates for the "one-percent solution" argued in the last decade that federal and provincial investments of about $4 billion per year (about one percent of Canada's GDP) could provide adequate housing for all. This would also employ huge numbers of building trades workers, and dramatically cut spending on emergency services for the homeless. But federal investments on such housing have instead fluctuated around 0.25% of GDP, far below the level necessary to solve the problem.

 

            Of course this crisis can be solved. But for that, we need a government which puts people's needs ahead of corporate greed. Reviving the "one-percent solution" housing campaign would be a good way to step up public pressure on Parliament.

 

(The above article is from the July 1-31, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)