Homelessness is a national disaster

Canada is practically the only industrial nation without a national housing program.

by Cathy Crowe

April 2006, Straight Goods
Reprinted courtesy of Cathy Crowe and Straight Goods

Disasters are not limited to earthquakes, ice storms or floods. When significant numbers are affected (1.7 million Canadians suffering an affordability crisis alone and an estimated 250,000 using emergency shelters in a year), when people remain in shelters for more than a few months - when the expectation becomes years, when old diseases like tuberculosis come back to haunt, when bedbug infestations become a public health hazard and when you are four times more likely to die if you are homeless, then it's time to call things for what they are.

In 1998, the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee declared homelessness a national disaster. Let me repeat that - a national disaster. Four hundred organizations from across the country endorsed our declaration. City councils across the country including Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver passed motions to this effect. The Big City Mayors Caucus of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities did the same. That day, November 22 is now marked as National Housing Day across the country.

Homelessness is no longer invisible nor can it be ignored, although the powers that be have been procrastinating as long as they can, avoiding the obvious solution.

A History Lesson

I'd like to talk to you about the making of what we call the homeless disaster. It's an important Canadian history lesson that we should all know and learn from - primarily so that we can never let it happen again.

Canadians, beginning with Tommy Douglas, fought hard to achieve Medicare and although it may not be perfect, (for example, it is yet to include a Home Care and Pharmacare component), at least we have a program that we can build on. Canadians care for Medicare and we will fight to keep Medicare.

Housing is a different story - at least in modern times. When a housing shortage became evident at the end of World War II in Canada and our veterans returned home, there was a significant outcry that our governments needed to meet people's social needs.

In the period from the late 1940s to the end of the 1960s the federal government funded about 12,000 units of largely public housing. When I visit a new community, I'll be touring an area and suddenly I'll see it and I'll say "is that your war-time housing?". It's still standing, it's still usable and it is probably one of the most important reminders we have that, at one point in our history, our government knew they had to respond and produce what its citizens demanded.

Starting in the 1960s and quickly ramping up with amendments to the National Housing Act in 1973, the federal government funded more than 500,000 social housing units in co-ops and non-profits. We averaged about 20,000 units per year, and we built it all across the country. During those years we developed an incredible experience in constructing social housing. Churches built non-profit housing, co-ops built non-profit housing, cities had housing programs, unions developed housing. Sure, we made some mistakes with huge high-rise projects that didn't have enough green space or services, but overall our co-op housing, our supportive housing, our not-for-profits have done a remarkable job.

But then, starting in 1984 and over the next decade, the federal government cut almost $2 billion from housing programs. The cuts continued until 1993 - then the Mulroney government cancelled all new affordable housing spending in 1994.

In 1996, the federal government (Paul Martin was Finance Minister) began the downloading of existing federal housing programs to the provinces and territories. In 1998 they made the decision to commercialize Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Canada's housing agency, and limit their role in new housing.

These steps left Canada as one of the only countries in the world without a national housing program. We have lost the opportunity to build at least 300,000 social housing units, based on the average number of units, 25,000 units/year, that were funded prior to the Mulroney cuts.

In 1998, the federal government changed the National Housing Act, eroding the role of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in developing new affordable housing and turning it into a "profit centre" by increasing mortgage insurance fees and cutting programs. These federal actions were followed by similar reductions, cancellations and downloading by most provinces and territories.

As Prof. Jean Wolfe of McGill University wrote:

"It is only in Canada that the national government has, except for CMHC loans, withdrawn from social housing. The rush to get out of managing existing projects and building new, low-income housing has taken advocates by surprise. It was never imagined that a system that has taken 50 years to build-up could be dismantled so rapidly. Social housing in Canada now consists of a checker-board of 12 provincial and territorial policies, and innumerable local policies. It is truly post-modern."

Here in Ontario in 1995, the Mike Harris government cancelled 17,000 social housing units that had already been approved for development. Those units could have housed 40,000 people.

Here in Ontario in 1995, the same government cut by almost one-quarter, the shelter-allowance component for welfare recipients.

Here in Ontario in 1998, housing was downloaded to municipalities.

Here in Ontario in the 1990s there were major cuts to provincial housing programs. There were similar patterns across the country.

So, we should not have been surprised when we saw the following, and, as a nurse in Toronto, I had a particular vantage point.

• New and scared faces in drop-in centres and shelters. People who had never thought they would be homeless. A rise in economic evictions.

• Roads out and roads in. When things got tight and stressful in other communities for people who needed additional social services, the road usually led out of the small town and into the big city where there were more resources.

• Crowded shelters, almost impossible to find a shelter bed.

• Increased violence and theft in the shelters.

• New and old diseases - tuberculosis outbreaks, tuberculosis deaths. Lice, scabies, bedbug infestations. Norwalk virus outbreaks. Malnutrition.

• More visible 'street homelessness' and encampments like squats and tent cities.

• Worsening overall health, including mental health.

• Escalating death rate.

Since declaring Homelessness a National Disaster there have been victories:

• In 1999 Prime Minister Chrétien appointed a Minister Responsible for Homelessness - the first time in Canada, maybe a first for the world, which says a lot about our problem. Fortunately, now we have in name at least, a Minister of Housing, Minister Joe Fontana and not a Minister Responsible for Homelessness.

• Two strong national networks have been formed: the National Housing and Homelessness Network and the National Coalition on Housing and Homelessness.

• Maclean's reported that 85 percent of Canadians agreed with increased spending on homelessness. Other indicators suggest that Canadians are very aware that the problem is no longer a big city problem and that solutions require senior government involvement, not simply charity.

• In 1999 the federal government announced its homelessness strategy and SCPI (Supporting Community Partnership Initiative) funding, which was renewed in 2003 for another 3 years. We hope it will be renewed yet again.

• In November 2001, the federal government announced its Affordable Housing Framework Agreement ($680 million over years). In 2003 the federal government added $320 million bringing the total to $1 billion. The first new federal money since housing was slashed 10 years earlier.

• In June 2003 the TD Bank issued an economics report on affordable housing stating it was "one of Canada's most pressing public policy issues."

• The last federal budget contained zero dollars for housing but the Layton-Martin budget ear-marked $1.6 billion for affordable housing over 2 years (still to be spent). C-48 the Budget Bill has still to this date not delivered. The federal government is delaying the rollout of the monies until March 2006, the end of the fiscal year, depending on if there is a surplus.

Today's reality in Ontario

Since signing the Federal-Provincial-Territorial (FPT) housing agreement in 2001, Ontario has promised a total of 46,332 units and delivered only 63. You might be surprised by these numbers because there have been something like 11 Ontario announcements with photo ops and ministers signing agreements. There have been 336 FPT announcements since 2001! However, announcements of housing allocations are not the same as actual allotments for those units.

Until recently Ontario had 3 ministers with responsibility for housing. Do you know who they were? Minister Pupatello is Minister of Community Services and had the homeless, shelters and rent supplement file. Minister Caplan was Minister of Public Infrastructure and had the new affordable housing file. Minister Gerretsen is Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. He had part of the new housing file, plus rent regulation/tenant protection and social housing. Now housing finally has been simplified and its Minister Gerretsen's portfolio.

So, why so few new units of housing in Ontario?

Primarily, because the Ontario government since the 2001 signing of the FPT has been reluctant to match the federal dollars. Ontario's not alone, but is perhaps the stingiest. Other provinces have also cut their housing spending. Across the country, it's only Quebec that has been close to meeting its targets.

Ontario's recent promise of 400 rent supplements in the private market in Toronto only yielded an actual number of 40 - a hint of how the reliance on the private sector does not create housing.

Cathy Crowe, Street Nurse, is co-founder of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee and is currently a citizen member of the Toronto Board of Health. She is a recent recipient of the Atkinson Economic Justice Fellowship.