Now We're Talking Sense

Finally, a nation-wide attempt to deal with the problem of homelessness plaguing Canadian cities. This is a scar on the tissue of the Canadian social contract, a miserable sub-text to the freedoms and entitlements of all Canadians to be decently sheltered, to live reasonably free and protected lives. When the provincial governments in their wisdom decided to shut down facilities that were used to house and treat people with mental illness on the premise that they should be free to live their lives in broader society, they left these vulnerable people to their own devices.

As a result, many homeless people with mental illness are homeless because they are denied social housing, which permanent shelters stipulate that to be considered for such housing those suffering mental illness must be in active treatment, or be on a medication protocol. It is estimated that there may be as many as 300,000 homeless people in Canada, wandering the streets of cities and towns, fending for themselves as best they can. Some are the victims of drug or alcohol abuse, many are suffering from mental illness.

Some represent young people who have been abused, and who have abandoned their families who presumably first abandoned them. Regardless of who they are, what their circumstances, that they live on the streets of our towns and cities is a disgrace and a violation of basic human entitlements. Everyone should be able to live free of fear, of persecution, and, we would think in a society such as ours, assured steady meals and medical treatment.

That there are also families with young children who are homeless represents an unspeakable social failure, a true tragedy.

Finally, a new five-year national research project is set to be initiated in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Montreal, Toronto and Moncton, as a pilot project, taking its cue from a similar project which saw success in New York City. The goal is to take the homeless off the streets and into housing where social workers can call in on them to guide them, and where medical treatment as required, is available to them.

There is a tacit recognition in the name of the project, At Home/Chez Soi ("housing first", that anyone requires the security of a home before they can be persuaded to seek further assistance for themselves. Once they experience the security of a safe dwelling choices can further be made about how they will commit themselves to deal with addiction and mental health circumstances. The federal government has allocated $110-million for the five-year project.

Housing and support services are to receive 85% of that funding. A relatively modest number of mentally ill, homeless people in those five cities have volunteered to take part in the project. Half to be offered remediation services only, the other half to be housed first, then services offered to ascertain the efficacy of stable housing for the socially unhoused. Once given the security of housing, they will be regularly visited by a social worker.

The initiative first seen in New York City saw a 90% success rate. We can aspire to mirror that success. It's an insult to every Canadian that other Canadians exist as homeless migrants, never knowing whether they will be able to endure another winter, whether they will be able to access the medical treatment they require, whether they will go to bed hungry yet again.

This is a moral response to an ethical social dilemma. One that, untreated, costs the Canadian taxpayer far more than the expenses related to the experimental program, when resources like emergency rooms, police and incarceration are used as temporary measures to deal with what has become a permanent blight on society.

Its ongoing assault on our social sensibilities insists on a search for social justice.