On Ending Homelessness

What is the image that we have of the homeless? Is it of a working woman who doesn't make enough to pay the rent? Or perhaps an immigrant family living in a motel? How about a young man living on the couches of friends for months on end? Or an elderly widower whose fixed income doesn't cover the rent? No. Most likely it's the image of a grizzled old man, sleeping on the sidewalk. This is the image we have, but that is only the visible face of the unhoused.

The fact is, the unhoused population is very diverse, with those sleeping on the street making up only a small percentage of the entire homeless population. And in keeping with this diverse picture, the paths into homelessness are many. A Toronto study showed that of the people surveyed, the causes of homelessness were as follows: job loss/inadequate income/eviction, 52%; conflict/divorce, 26%; drug/alcohol abuse, 18%; mental illness, 4%.

The homeless crisis we see around us is not something "natural" that always has been and always must be. It's the result of specific policies enacted by Federal, Provincial and Municipal leaders over the past 20 years. For example, some communities reported a 75% increase in evictions in the months following the massive cuts to welfare in Ontario in 1995.

In other words, homeless people are homeless largely because our leaders made certain decisions that put them there. That is, homeless people are not helpless and weak creatures, in need of our paternalism. They are human beings, and what they need (and what we need as a humanized society) is for governments to reverse the decisions that created the crisis of homelessness.

We could reverse the decisions that, for example, created a 44% increase in the number of homeless children from 1994 to 1999, to more than 6000 annually. And we can do more, if we set a goal for ourselves and act progressively to end homelessness, not just respond to it with band-aid measures or charity. As humanists, we believe that if present-day society doesn't meet the needs of human beings, then society should be changed.

With this in mind, Humanize Toronto is calling upon the City of Toronto to declare an End to Homelessness in 10 years. In Alberta, Red Deer City Council recently committed to do exactly this.

How do we end homelessness in Toronto? While Toronto can't end it alone, there is much more the City could be doing now. In any case, the first thing to do to end homelessness by 2015 is to come up with a plan, drawing on the vast knowledge within the city and best practices throughout the world. No one said this would be easy or fast. But if we don't start planning to end homelessness, homelessness will never end.

We'd like to invite all Torontonians to join this project and help the City make this pledge for 2015. This is a truly dignified cause that will require our best energies and creativity, and real change on all our parts: the housed and unhoused. If we look at the future and imagine what kind of city we want to live in, we can make it happen.