Homelessness in Canadian Society

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Canada is a developed country with a prosperous economy. Out of the 30 million people living in Canada, a massive 80% live in the urban areas.

In the last 11 years, Canada has realized national budget surpluses as noted by the Organization for Economic Development and Co-Operation (Gaetz 21). Canada also has a strong and well placed social programs and healthcare systems.

However, the country is among the developed nations that are currently experiencing a chronic homelessness crisis. This crisis has become relevant in the recent past as the gap between the rich and poor among people in urban and rural areas continue to increase.

People living in extreme poverty are more likely to lose their homes, and this is a prerequisite for homelessness. Homelessness in Canada is a current phenomenon which according to Gaetz (21) emerged in the 1980s but accelerated in the 1990s because of many social and economic factors.

Homeless individuals living on parks and streets across Canada have not gone unnoticed. Consequently, they have caught the eyes of the media, politicians, as well as the international community.

Therefore, homelessness in Canada has become a social problem and its major causes include among others, rapid changes in the social system, economic system and political system which are beyond the control of persons regarded as homeless.

In this paper, the author reviews the literature to explore the level of homelessness in the Canadian society with much emphasis on how it was created.

In the past decade, there has been a significant increase in the number of homeless individuals globally. Besides being a social issue, homelessness also happens to be a personal problem.

For example, when a single person is unemployed or cannot have access to affordable housing, the problem becomes individualized. On the other hand, when thousands of these people are unemployed or cannot have access to affordable and decent housing, the problem becomes societal.

However, homelessness is more of a social problem rather than an individual problem.

Various societal factors are thought to have contributed to homelessness and as Mao, Richter, Burns, and Chaw-Kant (2) have noted, they include among others, “lack of affordable housing, decreases in availability of rent subsidies, unemployment, cutbacks in public welfare programs, substance abuse, deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, and increasing rates of poverty”.

These factors are not exceptional in the case of homelessness in Canada. Similar sentiments have also been echoed by Mao et al. (21) who note that homelessness is a social problem that is mainly influenced by changes in values, social and political factors or systems.

In the late 20^th century, the Canadian government was actively involved in the provision of adequate housing, in addition to supporting low income earning individuals (Gaetz 22). This was realized through the enactment of the relevant government policies and practices.

Other than these policies and practices, the Canadian government enhanced increased house supply through measures such as social housing investment, government insured mortgages, and provision for subsidies to enhance rental housing development (Melaine 2008).

Through these changes and programs, all Canadians were now in a position to access sufficient and affordable supply of housing. What this means is that the Canadian government took upon itself to ensure that all its citizens were in a position to access clean, safe, and affordable shelter.

However, during the onset of the 1980s and throughout the 1990s, there were changes in social and economic systems in Canada.

One of the key causes of poverty among the population was the intense global as well as domestic changes in both government and housing social policies (Melanie 2008).

Consequently, poverty created room for homelessness. This is because an increase in standard of living and changes in housing and government policies led to growth in the number of people going to the streets and shanty shelters.

This was as a result of the individuals’ lack of access to decent, safe, and affordable housing. In his book Finding Home 2009, David Hulchanski, has portrayed the paradigm shift as being from “rehousing” policy to “dehousing” policy.

This could be reflected in the case where the Alberta government rejected a 2 million dollar appeal requested by the Calgary Homeless Group to develop homes for the homeless (CBC NEWS 2008).

Although the government stated that the location of the new housing for the homeless was not secure, it should have provided an alternative way of curbing the social problem.

In a conference held in 2009 in Canada, Hulchanski (2) observed that the government has no priorities on addressing the problem of homelessness. This is because only a small portion of governmental resources have been directed towards the improvement of housing conditions.

As a result, the demand for housing has surpassed the supply because of changes in government policies and efforts to address the issue of homelessness.

It also means that there is no adequate and affordable housing for low-income persons and the demand is way above the available government funds to undertake effective social housing programs.

Therefore, cutbacks in social housing and other initiatives could be blamed for the housing crisis being experienced in Canada.

Economic and social policy failures are the major prerequisites for homelessness in the Canadian society because it has been hard to meet the housing demands for most people. Hulchanski (11) concluded that homelessness has been persistent because the society we live in allows other people to control the events which lead to the classification of people being as homeless.

In other words, homelessness is as a result of how housing systems have been organized, and how support services and income are allocated or fail to be allocated (Hulchanski 12).

In Canada, homelessness is believed to be increasing at a very alarming rate, especially in the last decades thus resulting in increased visibility of homeless people (Melaine 1). In addition, this form of visibility has resulted in an increase in attention by the society.

The number of homeless youths in Canada, their entire families, and adults are also increasing. For example, a report released in 2007 by CBC News showed that “Canada’s homeless population is somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people, while another 1.7 million residents struggle with “housing affordability issues” (CBC News 1).

This means that more than 2 million people in Canada are faced with the problem of homelessness. The report adds that homelessness in Canada has now become chronic and a major defining social issue. As a result, there is need to address this social problem as quickly as possible.

In Calgary over 4,000 people and 200 families do not have a shelter or a place to call home. According to CBC News (2008), since 2006, there has been 18 percent increase in the number of homeless people in Canada.

Among these homeless, 78% are male, 72% reside in transitional housing or emergency shelters, and about 72% of them are of the age between 25 and 64 years (CBC News 2008).

Although Canada is a developed nation and a country which uses the largest portion of its GDP for humanitarian support, its people are faced with problem of being homeless.

According to CBC News (2007) the major cause of homelessness in Canada is not mental illness or substance abuse but instead, it is poverty.

The statistics indicate that at least half of the population lives in the fear of being affected by poverty, while 49% believe that they could be poor if they missed one month or two months salaries.

Therefore, poverty which is as social problem compared to other social factors is the main contributor of homelessness in Canada.

Rather than addressing the issue permanently through the provision of affordable housing for low income earners, the government has been busy containing the rate of homelessness growth through the use of temporary measures (CBC News 2007).

Based on the report by Calgary-based Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, the cost incurred while building temporary shelters is much higher compared to implementation of rent supplements and developing of affordable housing to the affected persons.

In Canada, homelessness is a major cause of social problems such as insufficient income, family conflict, mental illness, unemployment, and underemployment, and malnutrition.

All these societal ills according to Gaetz (22) are the reasons why Canada still continues to face the problem of homelessness despite its economic and social prosperity.

A report released by CBC News (2010) indicated that since 2008, there has been an insignificant change in the number of persons eking on low incomes. Moreover, 3 million Canadians are believed to spend sixty three percent of their income on basic needs.

The implication made is that most of the homeless people live in abject poverty. As the level of low income earners remains static, the standards of livings and prices of food commodities and fuel continue to increase.

As such, most of these people are forced to wind to the streets and makeshifts because they can hardly afford to pay rent.

As a result, homelessness has become a major crisis in Canada especially in urban areas (Mao, Calder, Solina and Kovacs 2) which is driven by poverty increase among the masses.

The federal government of Canada has been blamed for the increased levels of homelessness. This is because it has engaged in activities such as withdrawal of social housing, budget cuts, and tightened eligibility requirements for housing programs, inability to provide stable employment for the people (Melanie 2008).

The later has resulted in underemployment and unemployment which consequently encourage poverty and the inability to afford decent house.

Moreover, poverty has been attributed to other social and economic factors such as low minimum wages and lack of state income-assistance rates (Melanie 2008).

Hulchanski (3) argues that we have found ourselves in homelessness problem because of increasing poverty levels in Canada and the portrayal of the homeless by the media as poor, pathetic, dangerous, spoiled, and criminals rather than describing them as people in need, and hence the neglect.

The negative perception of the homeless resulted in ignorance by the concerned parties. According to the Homeless Hub (2009), the society has failed in keep poor families and their children from the street, hence the increasing level of homeless youth and young people.

One of the profound causes of homelessness in Canada was the disengagement of Canada’s national housing strategy (Gaetz 22). The Canadian government started to cut down its budget as a way of reducing its debt which affected its social spending.

Gaetz (22) adds that although budget cuts have resulted to surpluses, it has led to infrastructure deficit, especially n the housing sector.

Gaetz (23) adds that the elimination of Canadian National Housing Program by the Federal government started with reduction in government spending on social and affordable housing in 1980s which culminated into annihilation of spending allocated on new affordable housing stock.

In 1996, the Canadian Federal government relocated social housing responsibility to provincial governments.

Consequently, Canada was virtually left as the only developed nations in the world with no fully funded national policy on housing. This created room for homelessness, as majority of the people could not afford housing in the private sector.

It should be noted that the actions of the Canadian federal government ensured the erosion of social housing stock and affordable housing, which later propelled homelessness.

Moreover, the private sector on the other hand has largely focused on the construction of housing without considering low income earners. Decline in affordable housing stock was followed by rapid changes in income patterns.

This has been supported by Homeless Hub (2009) and Melaine (2008) who observes that there has been an income discrepancy between the upper and lower class. Subsequently, there is a large portion of the Canadian population which falls below the state poverty line.

Accompanying low changes in income pattern fall is rental vacancy rate which according to Melaine (2008) declined from 4.5 percent in 1995 to 2.9 percent in 2004. As a result, most of the residents have been spending more than 63% of their income in housing (CBC News 2010).

This phenomenon has resulted in chronic homelessness in Canada which is expensive for the government to control. This has been reflected in the work of Stephen Gaetz on “The Real Cost of Homelessness: Can We Save Money by Doing the Right Thing?”.

In this study, Gaetz (3) observed that it was more cost effective to tackle major causes of homelessness and prevent the issue of homelessness rather than providing day programs and emergency shelters.

Racial discrimination in Canada could have been contributed by chronic homelessness in Canada (Homeless Hub 2009). This has been supported by a report by the Toronto Star which states that because of discrimination, immigrants are less likely to afford decent housing (Keung 2012).

Because of poor pay, immigrants share houses and, spend more that 50 percent of their income on housing. The report adds that other than the documented visible homelessness, hidden homelessness is rampant because of increased unregistered migrants.

Other social factors which have enhanced homelessness people are such as homophobia.

For example, according to Homeless Hub (2009), most of the homeless youth are transgendered, bisexual, gay, or lesbian who have been discriminated against by family members in their communities, schools and neighborhoods.

This, coupled with violence has made living in home more intolerable hence hitting to the streets for survival. Homeless youths are likely to abuse drugs as well.

In summary, homelessness in Canada is a social problem that has been enhanced by rapid changes in social, political, and economic systems which could not be controlled by people facing homelessness.

As a result, more than 2 million people in Canada are faced with the problem of homelessness. Homelessness in Canada emerged in the 1980s and increased in the 1990s as a result of the federal government’s decision to overhaul housing policies and programs.

It can also be concluded that other than being a social problem, homelessness has become chronic in Canada. From a social perspective, homelessness is a social problem which was attributed to a multiple of societal factors.

Some of these factors as indicated in the essay include increasing poverty levels, substance abuse, unemployment, homophobia, discrimination. Poverty remains the leading cause of homelessness in Canada.

Although the private sector has invested highly in the housing sector, Canada lacks decent and affordable housing for its low income earners.

In as far as the economic and political perspectives are concerned, it is important to note that when the federal government changes its policies, this led to a paradigm shift from “rehousing” policy to “dehousing” policy.

For instance the federal government had to do away with the Canadian National Housing Program, after which it reduced its spending of affordable social housing schemes during the 1980s.

Moreover, the Canadian federal government eroded social housing stock and affordable housing which resulted in homelessness.

Works Cited

CBC News. “Poverty rate unchanged in 2008.” Homeless Hub, 17 Jun. 2010: 1. Print.

CBC News. “Homeless families on rise in Calgary.” Homeless Hub, 17 Jul. 2008: 1. Print.

CBC News.“Homelessness ‘chronic’ in Canada: study.” CBC News, 26 Jun. 2007: 1. Print.

CBC News. “Province rejects funding for homeless family shelter.” Homeless Hub, 14 Jul. 2008a: 1. Print.

Gaetz, Stephen. “The Real Cost of Homelessness: Can We Save Money by Doing the Right Thing?” Toronto: Canadian Homelessness Research Network Press, 2012. Print.

Gaetz, Stephen. “The Struggle to End Homelessness in Canada: How we Created the Crisis, and How We Can End it.” The Open Health Services and Policy Journal, 3 (2010): 21-26. Print.

Homeless Hub. Why do Young People Become Homeless?. The Homeless Hub. 2009. Web.

Hulchanski, David. Homelessness in Canada: Past, Present, Future, Alberta, Canada: New University of Calgary, 2009. Print.

Keung, Nicholas. “New immigrants are the hidden homeless.” Toronto Star. 02 Apr. 2012: 1. Print.

Mao, Yuping, Solina, Richter, Kovacs, Burns and Jean, Chaw-Kant J. “Homelessness Coverage, Social Reality, and Media Ownership: Comparing a National Newspaper with Two Regional Newspapers in Canada”. Journal of Mass Communication Journalism 2.7 (2012): 2-7. Print.

Melaine, Par. 2 Views of Homelessness. 21. Jun. 2008. Web.

Mao, Yuping, Moire, Calder, Solina, Richter, and Katharine, Burns. “Framing Homelessness for the Canadian Public: The News Media and Homelessness.” Canadian Journal of Urban Research (2011): 1-10. Print.

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Homelessness in Canadian Society

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