THE CREATION OF HOMELESSNESS

Homelessness is not something "natural" and the homeless crisis that we have around us today did not always exist. Over the past few decades, things have gotten much worse. For example, from 1994 to 1999, there was a 44% increase in the number of homeless children (to more than 6000 annually)ⁱ. And the Toronto Dominion Bank notes that, "after ten years of economic expansion, one in five Canadian households is still unable to afford acceptable shelter."

There are reasons for this. Reasons having to do with specific government decisions:

* Between 1984 and 1993, the Federal government steadily took billions of dollars out of the housing budget. The average annual supply of social housing went from 25,000 units in 1983, to zero units by 1993.

* In 1993, the Conservatives ended all funding for new social housing. When the Liberals took power that year, Finance Minister Paul Martin maintained this policy, effectively taking the Federal Government out of the housing sector.

* In 1995, Ontario cut welfare rates by 21.6%, meaning a single person on welfare would earn just $520 per month. While that rate has stayed the same, rents in Toronto have gone up 31% between 1997 and 2002ⁱⁱ. Imagine yourself taking a 21% paycut!

* Also in 1995, the Harris-Eves government cancelled 17,000 units of affordable housing approved for development, which would have housed 40,000 people. Then, the Ontario government downloaded the entire cost of social housing programs to the cities, effectively taking the province out of the housing sector.

Our governments used to fund housing and by consequence, the number of unhoused people was much less. But over the years, they have gotten out of Housing, and people have ended up on the streets. Today if the government decided to spend $1-billion, 20,000 new social housing units could be built, providing homes for over 45,000 people.

To be sure, homelessness is a complex thing and there is not one simple solution to it, nor one single explanation for why people end up without a home. But one simple thing can be said: all homeless people need housing.

We can end homelessness. And the first steps are very clear: reverse decisions like these above and build more truly affordable housing. We can afford it, and beyond that, as humanists we feel that we simply can't afford to let human beings be homeless. End of story.

For info on Canada's finances and how to pay for housing, see our material: "Where Did All the Money Go?"

i Made-in-Ontario Housing Crisis, 2001.
ii Toronto Report Card on Homelessness, 2003.