Homelessness

Homelessness

Homelessness can be found anywhere in the world, even in the most developed and wealthy countries like Canada. Homelessness is a key issue in any society, which consists of people that need help to continue to stay alive in society. It is necessary to see homelessness as an ever increasing problem in Toronto and stronger action must be taken to remedy the problem. By looking at the statistics of homelessness in Toronto and the responses to the problem in this essay will show that more action is needed to deal with this problem.

The definition of homeless can be described as the following, a person with no fixed address, stable, safe and healthy housing for the next 60 days, an extremely low income, adversely discriminated against in access to services, with problems of mental health, alcohol, and drug abuse or social disorganization and not a member of any stable group. ("Library of Parliament", 2007) The population of homelessness is composed of people of all races, cultures, genders, disabilities. There are three main types of homelessness which are: the chronically homeless, the cyclically homeless and the temporarily homeless. ("Library of Parliament", 2007)

The chronically homeless group of people includes people who live on the periphery of society and who often face problems of drug or alcohol abuse or mental illness. ("Library of Parliament", 2007) The cyclically homeless group includes individuals who have lost their dwelling as a result of some change in their situation, such as loss of job, a move, a prison term or a hospital stay. ("Library of Parliament", 2007) Those who must from time to time use safe houses or soup kitchens include women who are victims of family violence, runaway youths, and person who are unemployed or recently released from a detention centre or psychiatric institution. ("Library of Parliament", 2007) The temporarily homeless group includes those who are without accommodation for a relatively short period. ("Library of Parliament", 2007) Likely to be included in this category are persons who lose their home result of a disaster (fire, flood, war) and those whose economic and personal situation is altered by, for example, separation or loss of job. ("Library of Parliament", 2007)

In Canada, but specifically in Toronto the statistics of homelessness is as follow: 552 000 Toronto households have incomes below the poverty line, 250 000 Toronto households pay more than 30 per cent of their incomes on rent, 71 000 households are now on the municipal waiting list for affordable social housing, and 31 985 homeless individuals (including 4,779 children) stayed in a Toronto shelter at least once during 2002. ("Toronto", 2007) In 2002 a total of 31 985 different people stayed in an emergency shelter in Toronto one or more times during the year, an increase of 21% since 1990.("Toronto Report Card on Housing and Homelessness 2003", 2007) At this time there is no certain total number of people who are homeless in Canada or in Toronto.

There are many reasons and explanations for the causes of homelessness and the increase of it. Some causes of homelessness are from a wide variety of reasons, which include: loss of job, marital breakdown, mental illness (Henslin, 2001, p.396) and alcohol and drug addiction, but when it comes to youth and children, the reasons tend to revolve around the family. ("CBC", 2007) The increased poverty includes both the incidence and depth of poverty have increased because of changes in the structure of the labour market and because of public policy changes such as restrictions on employment insurance eligibility and cuts to welfare. ("Toronto Report Card on Housing and Homelessness 2003", 2007) Social factors that come in play for the creation of homelessness is domestic violence, physical and sexual abuse and the alienation of individuals from family and friends have increased the incidence of homelessness. ("Toronto Report Card on Housing and Homelessness 2003", 2007) The deinstitutionalization and lack of discharge planning consists of many people who suffer from mental illness and addictions are homeless partly as a result of deinstitutionalization without adequate community support programs; in addition, their problems have been exacerbated by the inadequate discharge planning of hospitals and jails. ("Toronto Report Card on Housing and Homelessness 2003", 2007) The main trend of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing; the dwindling supply of low-cost rental units and rooming houses, along with the withdrawal of support by both the federal and provincial governments for new social housing programs, have made affordable housing much harder to find. ("Toronto Report Card on Housing and Homelessness 2003", 2007)

The raising in cost of affordable housing, the increase in population and limited space contributes a big part in homelessness. Between 1996 and 2001, Ontario lost 44,780 rental units, of which 17,515 were in the greater Toronto area, where the population increased by 9.6% over that time period. ("CBC", 2007) Between 1997 and 2001, Toronto rents rose by 31% - more than double the 14% rate of inflation for the same period. Today, only 20% of private rental apartments rent for less than $800 a month. ("CBC", 2007) Since 1997, the increase in monthly rent for an average two-parent, two-child family rose $225. Among conventional one-bedroom units, average rent rose $220 over six years, to $894 in 2002. ("CBC", 2007) In the past three years, 873 new rental-housing units were built in the Toronto area (3% of new housing construction), as compared to 28,492 for the home-ownership market (97% of new housing construction). ("CBC", 2007) In Toronto, 49% of all households are tenants. Since 1996, the overall supply of rental housing actually decreased by 5,000 units. ("CBC", 2007) While vacancy rates in Toronto have climbed to about 2.4% this is not as heartening as it may appear. ("CBC", 2007) For units at the low end ($400 to $800) the vacancy rate is at about 1%, while the vast bulk of the vacancies are in the $1,200 to $1,600 range. ("CBC", 2007) As an indication of how tight the rental market has become, in 1996 units under $800 made up more than 65% of the market; today they make up only about 20% (49,100 of 250,500 units). ("CBC", 2007) As a result of this shortage of affordable housing 71,000 households are on waiting lists for social housing. ("CBC", 2007) At this time there is no change in terms of the cost and creation of affordable housing. Both the community and government must come together to take action in this serious