The debate and the uncertainty continue, as of this writing, as to the fate of the Encampment in our town. That is, where the people who live at the Encampment will be living by the end of the year. Lots of people have opinions (myself included). Lots of people feel strongly about the situation (myself included).
Some have suggested that the Encampment was formed in order to make a political statement. To draw attention to the problem of homelessness. To spark the conversation.
In fact Encampments everywhere (and I use that word, because they have become a nearly ubiquitous feature in municipalities of any size) are formed for safety. When people live isolated, they are infinitely more vulnerable than they are even living in a tent in February with community. Case in point.
Some of the recent rhetoric centres on the phrase that forms the title of this post. And I can't argue. That is definitely the goal.
But... perspective. This is from a Toronto Star article, February 3 2024: (TLDR: People are homeless because there isn't enough housing. No-More-Encampments is the goal. It is not the solution.)
(Apologies to the writer. I've lost the first page of the article, which carries the byline.)
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"Ontario
grew by almost three million people between 2007 and 2023, according to
Statistics Canada... Over the same period, the province broke ground on projects that all
together added up to just 1.2 million new housing units.
The crisis starts at the bottom, with what
experts call nonmarket housing. There will always be, in any big city, a significant portion of the
population who cannot afford to pay the prevailing rents. That proportion
will rise and fall depending on a host of factors, including the
economy, market rental costs, refugee inflows and more. But it will never be
zero. And the only way to house that non-zero population, according to decades of research on
chronic homelessness, is for governments to build, or fund, places
for those people to live.
The
problem in Canada is that "governments got out of the business of
helping to build affordable units" decades ago, said Tyler Meredith, who
was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's lead economic adviser until 2022.
Between
the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s, the Canadian government built a small
empire of nonmarket homes in this country--somewhere between 20,000 and
40,000 new units a year, every year, according to Carolyn Whitzman, a
housing policy researcher. But in the decades since, that boom has gone
decidedly bust. Between 1993 and 2001, Canada built just 50,000 new
public or nonmarket housing units, according to a recent analysis.
That creates a
problem for the people at the bottom rung. It explains in large part
the huge increase in chronic homelessness we've seen in Canada since the
1980s. But it also has run-on effects higher up the chain. "In a lot
of ways, homelessness is like a canary in the coal mine," said Richter.
Put
simply, if you don't have enough nonmarket housing some people will end
up with no housing at all. They'll be in shelters, on couches or,
increasingly... in public parks.
But not everyone will end up
homeless. A lot of them instead will end up spending more than they can
afford to rent a market unit. (Indeed, in Toronto last year, the share
of rental units in arrears climbed to nearly 20 percent, according to a CMHC
report released last week.) That's a problem for them. It means more
families taking on unsustainable or predatory debt or going without
money to spend on food, clothing and other necessities. But it's also a problem for everyone
else. It puts more pressure on the rental market. And the rental
market, like public housing, is a mess."
____________
Different levels of government have different roles to play in finding solutions to the housing crisis. There are some builds happening in our region that will, when ready, help to mitigate against the problem. I applaud those efforts.
In the meantime... banning encampments, refusing sleeping cabin clusters... these are symptoms of denial. Not signs of leadership.
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