Many Canadians throughout the country have noticed increasing numbers of homeless people in the streets of our cities during the past decade or so.  Even local governments in the suburbs of Toronto, where I live, have been forced to address the issue and open shelters to provide temporary housing to the homeless.

Experts agree that the situation is likely to become worse during the current economic downturn, and with this winter’s colder-than-average temperatures, this means thousands of homeless people in Canada are really going to struggle.

Generally speaking, there was a time when homelessness wasn’t really an issue as long as you had a job.  Yet today, there are Canadians throughout the country who have part-time and even full-time jobs who still don’t have a place to live.  The Toronto Star recently reported that 33% of homeless people in Toronto are immigrants, yet 40% of those homeless people actually have a vocational, college or university degree.  How is this possible in a country like Canada?

According to a City of Toronto study, there are more than 5,000 people either homeless or living in shelters in the city on any given night.  Perhaps the most tragic reality is the stunningly high number of homeless people who have psychological disabilities as well as the number of children and young people who are homeless.

The most important factor to realize is that it really doesn’t have to be this way.  Governments can take a leading role in the battle against homelessness and put greater resources into affordable housing.  Other countries, such as those of northern Europe, have maintained large-scale and affordable social housing programs that have lowered homeless rates far below anything in North America.  During this economic downturn, however, government budgets are strained, and further cutbacks to social programs are surely on the way.

This means that people like you and I will have to fill the gap and become more involved in a variety of ways, such as raising awareness, raising funds, or volunteering our time to work with organizations that help homeless people on a daily basis.  This can easily be done by contacting organizations such as the Red Cross, food banks or the dozens of religious groups throughout the city that work in soup kitchens, shelters and other facilities that help low-income and homeless people.

This is a new year and a new decade.  It is a time to make new promises not only to ourselves, but others – and then follow through on them.  The important thing is that we start on this right now.  As I always like to say, when people come together and work for a common goal, there isn’t anything they can’t do.  That’s what making change all about.  We CAN eliminate homelessness in Canada, so let’s get started!

Child Poverty in Canada

• The GTA is now the child poverty capital of Ontario: 50% of Ontario’s children in

poverty now live in the GTA, up from 44% in 1997.

• The City of Toronto is a bellweather on poverty trends: its child poverty rates are the highest in the GTA and are growing.

• In the City of Toronto all growth in the number of children living in poverty since

1997 occurred in the inner suburbs, where abysmally high rates of child poverty

now surpass those of downtown.

• In the GTA’s suburban Regions the number of children living in poverty is

growing at an alarming pace. Peel Region has had a 51% increase in the number

of children in poverty since 1997. York Region has had a 44% increase in the

number of children in poverty.

• The share of GTA children living in poverty is up from 1997 in Peel (now 22%) and York Region (12%).

• Over the long term, there is a 30-year upward trend in after-tax child poverty rates in the Toronto CMA. The CMA’s child poverty rates are higher than the rates for Ontario.

• After-tax rates of child poverty have doubled in the Toronto CMA in the past twenty years: to 16% in 2006, from 8% in 1988.

• Before-tax rates of child poverty also increased substantially in towns and cities

of the GTA. These rates went to 21% in 2005 from 12% in 1990 in Mississauga; to 18% from 10% in Brampton; to 20% from 8% in Markham; to 18% from 9%

in Richmond Hill; to 11% from 6% in Oakville; to 13% from 8% in Pickering; and, to 32% from 24% in Toronto.

Author: Bilal Rajan