The True Cost of Homelessness
For many homeless people, the winter of 2007 was a dark time – not only were many emergency shelters filled beyond capacity during cold snaps, but housing vacancy rates actually plunged in many cities, leaving growing numbers of Canadians with few options.
The coldest, deadliest nights of the year are now behind us. But the cost of homelessness isn't. According to a new report from the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, Shelter: Homelessness in a Growth Economy, homelessness is costing Canadian taxpayers $4.5 billion to $6 billion a year.
Canada in 2007 collectively spends more managing homelessness than it spends on international development ($4.1 billion) or on annual debt reduction ($3 billion). In fact, the cost of homelessness in Canada is comparable to the cost of the $4.35 billion 2006 GST tax cut and the entire 2007 environment plan on climate change, fresh water and wildlife conservation.
Since the early 1990s, Canada's main response to homelessness has been to build new emergency shelter beds and fund front-line services to help contain and warehouse a growing pool of homeless Canadians.
It hasn't worked. Welfare services, municipal services, provincial health-care systems and the nonprofit sector have been left to take up the slack for the estimated 300,000 homeless people as well as the upwards of 2.7 million low income Canadians who now face housing affordability problems…
All levels of government have shown a lack of leadership. Most provincial governments, for example, inadequately fund welfare, making it difficult, if not impossible, for recipients to find a place to live in our soaring real estate markets. Some of these same people then wind up in homeless shelters funded by all three levels of government. Taxpayers are paying at least twice and still we have homelessness.
While Canada's economy is booming, poverty is actually increasing. It was assumed that the economic boom would benefit all Canadians, but the evidence shows that the income gap is actually growing and affordable housing is harder to find.
Poverty is now the leading cause of homelessness in Canada, trumping substance abuse and mental illness. Canada's "new homeless" – families, women, students, immigrants, aboriginals – are simply low-income Canadians who need affordable housing.
Canada can no longer afford homelessness. Left unattended, circumstances will only become worse for many of those currently homeless. It is much more fiscally responsible to engage homelessness and invest directly than to neglect it.