On Wednesday, the Shelter Support and Housing Administration released the interim results of the Street Needs Assessment, a one-day blitz that saw hundreds of volunteers hit the streets, shelters, hospitals and correctional facilities to count and survey the homeless.
The assessment, conducted on April 17, found that the overall homeless population was 5,219, up only one per cent from the last time the assessment was completed, in 2009.
But Michael Shapcott, director of housing at the Wellesley Institute, says the survey reveals some “pretty troubling trends” about how the city is serving its most vulnerable citizens.
Like many experts, Shapcott takes the results of the SNA with a grain of salt. Many argue that because it relies on volunteers making personal contact with the homeless on the night of the count, it likely misses significant numbers of people who find shelter in out-of-the-way places, or who are only marginally housed.
But Shapcott says it’s useful to compare this year’s survey with the first SNA the city conducted, in 2006. That’s around the time the city launched the landmark Streets To Homes program, which was designed to reduce the number of people in shelters and on the street and get them into housing.
The 2013 numbers show that shelter occupancy is actually up eight per cent since 2006 and overall homelessness increased five per cent, which to Shapcott indicates the Streets to Homes program is not working.
“Clearly what these numbers show is there’s more people in the shelters now than when we started this exercise in 2006,” he says. “So we really have to ask some serious questions.”
Some other troubling statistics: the number of people sleeping outdoors increased 24 per cent since 2009, the portion of homeless who are seniors more than doubled to 10 per cent, and nearly one in five homeless youth identified as LGBTQ.
People who identified as Aboriginal were overrepresented in some of the most vulnerable categories: they made up one-third of those sleeping outside, and nearly 29 per cent of homeless people in correctional facilities. (Aboriginals make up only 0.5 per cent of the city’s population.)
“So all of this does underline the fact that we have a deep and persistent homeless disaster,” says Shapcott. “It’s affecting a number of parts of Toronto’s population: seniors, youth, people who are of Aboriginal ancestry.”
Councillor Joe Mihevc, vice-chair of the community development and recreation committee, agrees that there’s not much comfort to be taken from the SNA.
“These are signs of a fraying city. Not a sign of a city that’s meeting the challenges of its people,” he says.
Most troubling to him is the increasing number of homeless seniors, something he attributes to a lack of affordable housing and inadequate pensions in both the public and private sector.
He predicts that when the full report on the SNA goes before the committee in September, it will lead to recommendations to provide more affordable housing to the elderly. The city also needs to do more for Aboriginal people and provide supportive housing for those suffering from mental illness, he says.
Pat Anderson, a spokesperson for the shelter administration, says that until the full report is completed, it’s too early to speculate as to what’s causing the trends in homelessness and whether the city’s service model needs to be adjusted. But she says that seniors and the Aboriginal population are certainly two groups of concern.
“We’ll be looking very closely at that,” she says.
The administration is also considering opening up a new homeless shelter, following a council debate this spring that was prompted by reports the system is overcrowded. A report on opening a new facility will go before the committee in October.
Key findings of the SNA:
- overall homeless population was 5,219
- 447 people were sleeping outside, up 24 per cent from 2009
- the average length of homelessness was 3.1 years
- 33.9 per cent of people sleeping rough identified as Aboriginal
- 15.6 per cent of all homeless said they had served in the military
- 19.3 per cent of homeless youth identified as LGBTQ, compared to 9.5 per cent for the adult homeless population
- 10 per cent of the homeless population were over 61, up 4.7 per cent from 2009
- despite the persistent myth that people on the street prefer to be homeless, 93 per cent said they wanted permanent homes
- four out of five people had lived in Toronto for more than one year
- nearly half were on a waiting list for subsidized housing
Original Article
Source: NOW
Author: Ben Spurr
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