ANOTHER MISNOMER

Previously, I’ve tried to understand the circumstances surrounding our local homeless and overdose catastrophes. And I’ve relayed my surprise at discovering that, though using the same language, seemingly everyone is talking about different things and unaware that the common label covers many things they are far less (or not at all) interested in or concerned about.

So, for example, just as I did above, we all tend to lump the tiny cohort of folks, our neighbours, chronically living rough, unsheltered on the street or in parks, into the far broader category of “homeless.” That may seem like a silly thing to notice or worry about, but I think it's easy to see how there are all kinds of repercussions for this oversight. In light of our nationwide street homeless emergency, if I told you the government was directing $100 billion toward combating "homelessness", what would you think was taking place? Would you suspect the immediate focus was on subsidising new condo towers in the suburbs and doing so only to provide a few near-market rentals in an otherwise market-rate building? Or would you imagine they were quickly sorting out those folks living in tents downtown?

CATEGORIES

If you care enough about the housing situation to look into it (what we used to call “reading” but is, as many have noted, now mocked as “doing [one’s] own research”), you will find that the number of people experiencing homelessness is as large as the spectrum of experiences the label describes: from lacking any shelter to being sheltered (what I see as effectively opposites.) Any respectable definition of the term must also contend with the temporal, too. And those whose experience is momentary is markedly different, of course, from others on the opposite end of the continuum who find themselves unable to escape from the precarious housing loop or are stuck on the street.

To make sense of all that, most current literature talks about at least three categories of people: those who are said to be unsheltered (or experiencing “absolute homelessness”), emergency sheltered, or provisionally accommodated (which includes what his commonly termed the “hidden homelessness”, defined as falling into the previous categories and who don’t have permanent housing but are living with friends or relatives, in hotels or motels, or in transitional housing or institutional care, including refugees or immigrants transiting through temporary housing facilities.) 

Within those categories, the literature also differentiates people based on time spent under any circumstance, referring to them as either temporary, cyclical, or chronic. A short, unrepeated episode of homelessness, such as losing your apartment to a flood, falls under the temporary label. Someone moving in and out of homelessness for reasons such as changes in employment status or family structure is experiencing cyclical homelessness. And, as Statistics Canada explains, the label chronic homeless applies to someone who has “spent a total of at least six months (180 days) as homeless over the past year or have had recurrent episodes in the past three years with a cumulative duration of at least 18 months staying in unsheltered locations, in emergency shelters, or staying temporarily with friends or family members.”

As you can see, all these experiences and durations differ as radically as can be but all fall under and are conflated with this label homeless. But this isn't just some weirdly pedantic or hypothetical argument.

REAL NUMBERS

With that context, what does the housing situation look like in Canada? Well, the total number for all Canadians experiencing any type of homelessness in a typical year is said to average roughly 235,000. That said, estimates of the same total homeless population on any one day is in the range of 10% of that number, at about 20,000 to 25,000. But, as you can imagine, there are many reasons (practical, social, and psychological) that accurate numbers are hard to come by, particularly for the most extreme cases and those we are rightly most concerned about.

So, who are those 20,000 people? That cohort is made up mostly of folks who fall into both temporary and sheltered scenarios. Counts done between March 2020 and December 2022 in 59 communities across Canada, for example, showed 25% of the overall homeless population found to be unsheltered. So, though most visible at present, those experiencing absolute homelessness (the chronic unsheltered population and what almost everyone appears to be talking about when the topic of homelessness comes up), is a minority of the overall picture — something like 5,000 to 6,250 of the above 20,000 or 25,000 nationally.

MONEY SPENT

And why does that matter, in the real world and not merely as some sort of philosophical or semantic discussion? Because, we often see government spending on “homelessness” that directs many billions of taxpayer dollars away from that 25% in most need to everyone else on that vast and disparate spectrum. And even when doing so those funds are not well-spent. I believe all of this happens because we allow folks to frame everyone falling into this broadest of imaginable categories as the same or alike which, of course, makes no sense because they are, in reality, as different as can possibly be.

So what does this look like on the ground? Well, for example, the National Housing Strategy calls for $115 billion (originally $72 billion) to go toward 157,000 new housing units and 354,000 community housing projects aimed to cut “homelessness” by half by 2027. How does that strike you? 

To me it’s something like getting a call that a pair of boats have capsized and then sending out coastguard ships and helicopters not to immediately retrieve the drowning but to do dock maintenance and repaint lighthouses — and if they come across some sinking boats or folks treading water along the way, well then so be it. To me those 5,000 to 6,250 people, making up just 25% of the “homeless” population, are the entire unhoused emergency. Focus on anything else feels preposterous. Sure, it’s true, the problem of homelessness isn’t unidimensional but the chronically unsheltered proportion is the bit that’s catastrophic or even fatal for those experiencing it and also the bit most detrimental for everyone else, too. I mean, surely you’ve gotta triage a situation such as this. So is that what’s happening with our National Housing Strategy? Where are these funds going?

Well, to date, reporting suggests the largest expenditure on this initiative is $2.7 billion to the City of Toronto. And what is that for? It’s for repairs on existing housing infrastructure. Surely that’s needed. Okay. But it’s not solving chronic street homelessness or even just sending out the emergency responders, as I see it.

The next biggest spend by the National Housing Strategy was on a $444 million loan to a private developer for 855 units in Toronto. Of that total unit count, just 30% has been designated “affordable.” And affordable is considered to be 80% of market rate (one of the highest market rates for rental units in North America and around the world.) A median rental unit in Toronto is around $2,600 a month and so 80% would still be more than $2,000. (With a full-time minimum wage job in the city paying $2,700 a month. Meaning this "affordable" housing solution would still take 75% of a person's income and render them far below any commonly accepted poverty rate.) That, of course, is not affordable in any meaningful sense and has no impact on the majority of people in precarious housing situations. Obviously so. So it’s not close, as I see it, to even acknowledging the emergency experienced by those chronically unsheltered. 

Similarly, the largest project on the NHS program to be completed to date got a $109 million loan (for a property developer with billions in assets) to construct a 308-unit building in Coquitlam, BC. Despite their “people-first” commitment, fewer than half of those units are designated “affordable” and, like Toronto, will still come in at a monthly rental rate above $2,000 for a single bedroom. Right.

So none of the more than $3 billion spelled out above solves or even contends with homelessness in any respect, from where I sit, and none of it even appears to accept what I see as the problem: a real and growing emergency needing an immediate and conclusive response. To me this is something like hearing about a federal transportation plan and then getting wind that they earmarked half a billion dollars not to enhance rapid transit or cycling infrastructure but to bring back that ‘80s hit the Pogo Bal; and, worse, that they’ve already gifted millions to schools and seniors homes around the country. Is it somehow not that preposterous? It's probably worse, isn't it? I don't know how you could interpret most of this spending as anything but payouts to the same old coterie of friends politicians everywhere have always gifted public funds to. But let's just ignore that bit...

MISSPENT

To my mind, the high estimate of 6,250 is a very small number, especially when spread across the country’s 50 or 100 largest cities. Right? Even in our largest city, Toronto, the unsheltered population is fewer than 750 people. Hundreds of new units including full time specialized supports and care would not be a $2 billion dollar project, even in that city. And most of our cities are not anything like Toronto. (London, Ontario, just down the highway from Toronto, and still among the top ten worst cities in the country for the size of its homeless population, has fewer than 200 chronic unsheltered persons and median real estate prices 20-30% lower.)

In Toronto, with some of the most expensive real estate on the continent, you can build 750-units for between $500 million and $750 million. And then consider that across Canada assisted living for seniors (with all meals, housekeeping, and other services) ranges between $2,000 and $5,000 per month. So the total chronic unsheltered population of Toronto could likely be serviced for less than $25 million per year. And now consider that the city is probably already spending that in emergency and police services and more keeping these folks unhoused (or permitting them to remain so — however you prefer to see interpret the situation.) I mean, just the interest on the remaining $1 billion alone could cover a lot of the desired upkeep on existing housing stock and even the building of many new targeted, low income units in the city each year.

Given this math, I can’t imagine how homelessness remains a pernicious and ever-growing problem. And I really do not understand how, with still many billions more spent over the years, those in the worst predicament cannot be taken care of, seemingly, or why that wouldn't be prioritized far above everyone else. ...unless, of course, homelessness of the sort we care about most, and what most people mean when they talk about the subject, has nothing at all to do with housing or the lack thereof.