Homeless People In Canada

This perspective holds the view that the causes of homelessness lies outside of an individual’s control, and are often the result of a failure of public institutions. Structural causes are often those that affect the opportunities and the social environments for individuals, and as a result leads to a critical shortage of affordable housing, a lack of adequate income, and even discrimination (Gaetz, S., Donaldson, J., Richter, T., & Gulliver, T. 2013). For many, the lack of affordable housing - which is arguably the main contributor to immigrant homelessness in Toronto - may materialize from interwoven forms of discrimination and oppression based on an individual’s race, gender, social class, and even religion. Due to the low average household incomes of immigrants, the demand for affordable housing is further heightened. A study done in Toronto comparing homelessness and housing issues amongst women, revealed that compared to Canadian-born women, non-status migrant women had the most unstable pre-shelter housing, and stayed in shelters much longer compared to the other groups that were interviewed (Paradis, E., Novac, S., Sarty, M., & Hulchanski, J. D. 2010). This study supports the perspective that immigrant homelessness is the result of the failure of public institutions who are responsible for the policies which govern the

“Today … there is a growing crisis of women’s homelessness across Canada. The Canadian government has failed to explore the causes of women’s homelessness” (Rahder, 2006, p.38). This growing issue is caused by societies carelessness on the homelessness issue, and the lack of support to change it. Even the Canadian government does not see it as an urgent issue to address because, as stated above, they have even failed to

Homelessness is a condition of people who lack regular access to adequate housing. As this condition becomes a growing problem in Canada people are forced to deal with the issues. Who are the homeless? They range from children to adults and even in some cases, families. Why are they homeless? Poverty, lack of jobs or well paying jobs, decline in Social Services, domestic violence, mental illness, and chemical dependency contribute to the majority of the homeless within our society. What effects does being homeless have on members of the family? It contributes to many physical and mental health problems for both parents and their children. Homelessness is a world-wide issue, yet zeroing in on Canada, the majority of the homeless live on the

It is time, at last, to speak the truth about my community. As an 18 year old living in Ottawa, the Nation’s Capital, I have had many feelings regarding the homeless and the poor living within my community. The homeless and the poor require much needed assistance, as their situation is miserable. Being given the power to make changes, I think this issue would be the first priority. As a member of my community, Ottawa, I must aim for a positive change. The change could be in housing, food services, and health.

Homelessness in the United States can be ended, not just maintained. Allot of cities now have plans to eradicate homelessness. Homelessness and housing instability are large issues that afflict a diverse demographic such as: Families, youth, veterans, and chronically homeless single male adults. Ending homelessness may require specialized solutions that are specific to individual needs. Factors like these make defeating homelessness a difficult task. Although solutions exist for some of the demographics, such as housing for chronically homeless adults, scaling up best practices remains a challenge. For other subpopulations, such as transitional aged youth, evidence-based interventions need to be developed. In this paper we argue that ending homelessness is a Grand Challenge that is big, important, and compelling—one that the profession of social work should be adopt. Meeting this challenge will require a focused, organized response from social work researchers, clinicians, and policymakers. Ending homelessness will require innovation and interdisciplinary or cross-sector collaboration. Key words: Housing First, Permanent Supportive Housing, rapid re-housing, prevention, poverty. The notion that homelessness in the United States can be ended, rather than managed (Mangano, 2002; National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2012), represents a fundamental shift in expectations from the 1980s and ’90s. Since the early 2000s, researchers, policymakers, advocates,

b) Lack of supply- Along with the presence of higher demand in the housing market of the country already, the lack of supply of affordable housing in Canada has aggravated the crisis even more. Due to the presence of excess demand in the market, the quantities of housing, especially the private sector profit-maximizing ones have increased the price of their housing facilities, which in turn has contributed significantly to the already existing problems of homelessness in the country.

Homelessness is a prime concern for numerous countries across the globe, including the most advanced ones. Though the population of homeless people tends to be higher in developing countries, it is still a concern in developed nations. Homelessness is a state where someone lacks regular shelter. The term includes people who do not have a home and sleep on the streets, as well as those whose basic nighttime residence is a homeless shelter or other improvised form of housing. Such people lack the capacity to acquire or maintain sufficient nighttime shelter. Individuals and family units become homeless for many reasons. Assessing these causes can help to mitigate the issue.

According to former NDP leader Jack Layton (Layton 2008: xix), the economic causes of youth homelessness can be summarized by stating that homelessness is an issue of both supply and affordability . Looking specifically at Atlantic Canada, affordable housing is a primary concern for those tacking homelessness. According to Layton, “In New Brunswick, where poverty is an issue, few new subsidized housing units have been built in the last 10 years, and there is no supportive housing. The poor condition of the existing housing stock contributes to youth

If you do not already know what homelessness means, it is someone who is not able to live in a stable residence because of financial or psychological problems, so they are forced to live on the streets or put themselves on the streets, because they feel it would be a better fit. Homelessness in Canada is a very large and concerning issue because of the growing population.

“Homeless is more than being without a home. It is tied into education needs, food, security; health issues both mental and physical, employment issues, etc. Don’t forget the whole picture.” (“Boxed In” 2005 pg. 108)

Homelessness can simply be defined as the lack of house or shelter. Hulchanski (n.d.) believes that homelessness is “a great unresolved political and social problem of our time.” He defines homelessness as:

Imagine living paycheck to paycheck and having your house be taken away. It’s scary and now you have nowhere to live. It happens to many people, and sometimes, like in the case of the financial crisis, they end up living on the streets a lot longer than they anticipated. “Breaking the Cycle” by Sian Griffiths for New Internationalist discusses chronic homelessness and how the Housing First is helping. Housing First was created to lower the number of individuals living in chronic homelessness and they’ve been successful. Housing First gives homeless individuals permanent housing without any barriers or conditions like sobriety (Griffiths 16). Buying housing and allowing homeless people to move in doesn’t sound like a perfect idea, but the program has an eighty percent success rate which is higher than any other program (Griffiths 16 ). Since Housing First has been so successful in the United States, Canada decided to begin the program in their own country. Canada was experiencing exactly what the United States was a decrease in health care and social services cost. So, not only was this program successful for homeless people, but

This article (originally a speech) talks about how homelessness has been an issue in Canada in the past but is also an issue Canada faces today and how the future of homelessness in its society depends on the actions taken today. Specific information given in the article includes going back as far as 1960 with specific examples of how the Canadian government has been dealing with the issue through the ages. Giving direct quotes from government documents and speeches to statistics, it is divided to into three main categories: past, present, and future (and further going into sub categories from there). Relevant issues are discussed such as how some societal issues and global affairs affect the wealth of Canada and how this can turn into poverty.

From the literature review, using articles written on homeless populations across America and in Canada, the same conditions can be found. For example, chronic and communicable illnesses, mental illnesses, and substance abuse disorders, are linked to poverty and housing instability, lack of insurance, and access to health care services. Being homeless brings stigma, rejection, and judgement that results in the lack of trust in the medical community. This further creates a barrier to health care treatment or even the seeking of care by the homeless individual. One way to reach a transient population, who is in high need of medical and social services, is with an MMU. The literature has shown, that they can be operated by students, health

I believe homelessness is one of the most pressing social issues that Canada is facing, there are a number of diverse reasons for people living like this and the homeless population is more or less invisible to the rest of society. There are both external and internal factors that may contribute to an individual becoming homeless, these may include, but are not limited to; mental health issues, addiction and/or alcoholism, physical disabilities, lack of financial and social support, lack of employment skills and a lack of employment opportunities. There seems to be a gap in services and the large number of homeless individuals and families are the ones that fall through the cracks.