The Problem of Homelessness

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Chris Sarlo

During this past winter, there were many stories in the media about homelessness in our large cities. Generally, these stories gave the clear impression that homelessness was increasing and that governments were either ignorant of the problem, or insensitive to the plight of the homeless. In Toronto, Canada’s largest city, the mayor commissioned a report on the issue. That report, entitled Taking Responsibility for Homelessness: An Action Plan for Toronto, was released in mid-January and has received substantial publicity since then. This report, referred to as the "Golden report" after its principle author, Anne Golden, is considered one of the most comprehensive and certainly the most up-to-date on this issue. The federal government responded in March by establishing a new ministry for homelessness and promising financial assistance.

No compassionate Canadian can be indifferent about human beings living on the street. It is simply not right that people should have no where to turn for housing save hostels. Surely one of the saddest sights in our large cities is that of people lying on the pavement at night covered only by a sleeping bag or cardboard. At the same time, no one who understands the importance of liberty would suggest that anyone should ever be compelled to get off the street and go to a warm bed at night. People are not animals to be herded out of sight of prime commercial areas. As many experts on homelessness have acknowledged, this is a very complicated and difficult problem.

That said, some of the claims in the Golden report need to be challenged. The first is that homelessness in Toronto is increasing. This claim is based on an expanded (and frankly, unrealistic) definition of homelessness which includes people who live in illegal or temporary accommodation and those "at imminent risk of becoming homeless." Those in the latter category are people on waiting lists for social housing. I do not think it is unreasonable to treat these people as three separate categories. In the first group are people who are homeless, who literally have no where to stay; in the second group are people who are inadequately housed, that is, who have illegal, unsafe, or too expensive housing, or whose housing is temporary; and in the third group are people who await social housing and who may or may not be at risk of becoming homeless. All three should be measured as part of a comprehensive housing analysis. However, the term "homeless" should be reserved for those without any housing. By way of analogy, we don’t include as unemployed those who have inadequate jobs or those whose jobs may be at risk.

The brief part of the report devoted to measurement notes that while about 25,000 different people used hostels or shelters, including motels, in 1996 (about 3,200 on any average night), only a few hundred people live on the streets of Toronto at any one time. There is no evidence presented, either way, about the trend in this latter number. This is unfortunate, since most of the media stories and expressions of compassionate concern by Canadians deal with those who live on the streets.

The fact that there are many more people in the other two (not mutually exclusive) categories, that is, inadequately housed, and on social housing waiting lists, suggests, more than anything else, that Toronto has a shortage of low-cost rental accommodation. This is, of course, nothing new. Next only to Vancouver, Toronto has the most expensive rental housing in the country and the lowest vacancy rates. This has been the case for more than two decades.

A second claim that needs critical examination is that rising homelessness is due to increasing poverty in Toronto. The evidence here is that the rate of "low income" increased between 1991 and 1995. The pattern over this very short time horizon is as follows: the proportion of Toronto’s population living below Statistics Canada’s Low-Income Cut-Offs (LICO, 1986 base) actually fell from 1991 to 1994 (17.45 percent to 16.31 percent) only to rise in 1995 to 18.86 percent. The magnitude of the change and the fact that we have just a one-year rise make it hard to credibly conclude anything about poverty trends in Toronto. Further, the use of the LICO lines as poverty lines is highly questionable given Statscan’s ad nauseam disclaimers about these cut-offs. If we use basic needs poverty lines (which would, I should think, be far more relevant to the issue of homelessness) we find that about 5.4 percent of Torontonians were poor in 1991. This proportion fell to 4.6 percent in 1994, only to rise again somewhat in 1995 to about 5 percent. Even if we assume that income is a fair indicator of economic well-being of low-income Canadians, these data make it impossible to conclude anything about poverty trends in Toronto in the early-to-mid 1990s.

If homelessness were largely a problem of poverty, we would have seen the homeless problem decline over the past several decades as real poverty has roughly halved. Yet all the evidence is that homelessness and emergency shelter use are indeed higher than they were 30 and even 20 years ago. A far more plausible hypothesis is that any recent increase in homelessness, as it is widely defined, is due to the combined effects of deinstitutionalization (the release of people from mental institutions), increased addiction and substance abuse problems, and greater rates of family breakdown. Yet increased poverty is listed in the report as the primary cause of homelessness.

Finally, Canadian governments do have in place a social safety net specifically designed to prevent homelessness and hunger. The welfare system provides any Canadian resident who has no other resources with an income to cover the basic requirements of everyday living. My own research has shown that, at least for the past decade or so and up to the current time, welfare succeeds in covering basic needs of all recipients, except for single employable persons, in all parts of Canada. In the latter category, singles can still cover their necessities by doubling up with others in similar circumstances - the way many college and university students share accommodation to stretch their budgets. The point needs to be made more strongly: there is no reason, on financial grounds, for any Canadian family to be homeless. The resources are in place to ensure, at the very least, that people can cover adequate food, shelter, clothing, and other basic needs. There may need to be volunteer and professional counselling help for people with poor budgeting or coping skills, and people in crisis situations, such as spousal abuse, to assist them in using the programs that are available. However, last resort programs and tax-based credits do ensure that no Canadian family need be homeless or hungry.

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