tgulliver's blog

L'Observatoire canadien sur l'itinérance/le Rond-point de l'itinérance et l'Alliance canadienne pour mettre fin à l'itinérance se sont une fois de plus mis ensemble pour publier un rapport national sur l'itinérance

There is a popular parable, especially in healthcare, that explores the benefits of “upstream thinking” —the need to look at prevention, rather than just solutions—if we want to end social ills. Each telling of the story varies but essentially:

It could just be the nature of the people in my social media networks, but every day I see at least 5-10 references about missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada. Sometimes many, many more. There are calls for inquiries, petitions to sign and sadly, too often, stories about yet another Aboriginal woman who went missing or has been found dead.

People experiencing homelessness present with many complex and diverse needs. Once they are housed, these needs do not magically disappear.

I’ve never really liked the term ‘child poverty’. In Canada, children are poor because their parents (or other caregivers) are poor. ‘Family poverty’ is a more realistic term, yet it’s not quite as appealing and doesn’t tug on the heartstrings as much as ‘child poverty’. But semantics of terminology aside, new research released this week provides a glimpse into the extent of this issue.

Inadequate income, employment and education are well documented as causes of and contributing factors to people cycling in and out of homelessness. However, on the flip side they also create possibilities for moving from homelessness to housing.

This is definitely not an easy question to answer. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to matter how much public education exists, people have developed stereotypes and prejudices very early on in life and it’s hard to break them. As a society we also tend to generalize and project bad experiences broadly so one negative interaction with someone experiencing homelessness becomes indicative of all homeless people.  Yet the pathways into and out of homelessness are unique for every single person.

So…what can you do?

Two answers come to mind when I think about this: