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There has been a lot of talk recently about housing.
People tend to put "affordable housing and homelessness" in the same sentence. Although both issues are important and they are related, there are distinct differences.
When people talk about affordable housing, they are usually talking about affordable housing for families which is a valid concern. Having affordable housing for families would take the pressure off the food banks and families, and if people have a reasonable amount of disposable income, all businesses profit.
On the other hand, most of the homeless population are single men and women. Their needs are different. A single person requires a bed sitting room with a kitchen and a washroom. Nobody builds that.
I have 15 years experience working with the homeless and there is a disturbing trend over the years.
First there are more female homeless persons than there were before and the age is rising. A concerning percentage of people utilizing homeless shelters are seniors. This problem is going to be getting worse.
There are more and more people reaching even an older retirement age, and CPP and OAS and supplement is not enough income to afford accommodation.
This is especially true of women whose working history was interrupted by raising children so they do not quality for the maximum CPP. We are now into two generations of people who work the the 'gig' economy so their CPP contributions can be spotty and unless they have the financial know-how to create their own pension plan, their pension income can be insufficient when they age out of the work force.
It is only recently that the school system is teaching financing planning. In the meantime more and more seniors are going to fall into this cycle of insecure housing or homelessness.
There seems to be the assumption that if we just build more affordable units, the whole problem will be solved but the issue is not that simple. As long as we put the two issues in the same sentence the problems will not be solved.
Communities are always interested in improving their older areas, but a lot of improvement projects start with the elimination of old, sub-divided houses which provide needed small housing units, and there are seldom plans in place to re-house the people displaced by these projects.
We need to separate these issues and give both of them the same awareness and attention.
Ruth Brooks
Bradford
