Homelessness continues to be a visible problem in most Canadian cities.  I would say most Canadians, when they think about how we respond to homelessness, would consider emergency shelters, drop-ins and soup kitchens – charitable programs set up to shelter and protect people while they are homeless – as central to our response.

But what about policing and law enforcement?  What about the issuing of tickets and fines for panhandling or sleeping in parks?  Such practices, which essentially criminalize homelessness, are every bit as central to our response.

At a time when the growing divide between rich and poor is in the spotlight, how we choose to deal with society’s most vulnerable – the people who occupy our streets not by choice but by necessity – is important to consider.  The criminalization of homelessness runs counter to the “Canadian way.” It is out of line with our principles as a just and civilized society.

Two reports that highlight the downside of criminalizing homelessness in Canada have been released this week.  “Can I See Your ID?  The Policing of Youth Homelessness in Toronto” (Bill O’Grady, Stephen Gaetz, Kristy Buccieri) and “La judiciarisation des personnes en situation d’itinérance à Québec : point de vue des acteurs socio-judiciaires et analyse du phénomène” (Dominique Bernier, Céline Bellot, Marie-Eve Sylvestre, Catherine Chesnay) both explore the impact of policing on homelessness. The first report, Can I See Your ID, reveals that despite strong evidence that panhandling and squeegeeing have declined over the past ten years, the amount of tickets issued under Ontario’s Safe Streets Act has increased exponentially, rising from 780 issued in 2000, to over 15,000 in 2010.  All this has left homeless people with an accumulated debt of over $4 million dollars.

Interviews with street youth reveal that they receive a huge amount of attention from police, not only in the form of tickets, but also through regular ‘stop and searches’. This attention is not limited to those who are criminally involved – the evidence is clear, street youth are being subject to social profiling.  In particular, being young, male and visibly homeless in downtown Toronto means you are very likely to have regular encounters with police.  The second report also documents consistent practices of criminalizing homelessness across seven Canadian cities (Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec, and Halifax).

How does any of this make sense?  Issuing fines to people with little or no money does not help them move forward with their lives. It alienates and traumatizes an already marginalized population and makes moving out of homelessness that much more difficult.  Ample research from the United States highlights the negative impact of criminalizing homelessness (Culhane 2010; Ruddick, 1996; NLCHP, 2006; 2009).  While we often consider the use of law enforcement – including both policing and incarceration – as a characteristically ‘American’ response to poverty, we need to accept and realize that we do the same thing in Canada (Hermer & Mosher, 2002; Sommers, 2005; Sylvestre, 2010).  Whether this means creating new laws that target homeless persons, (banning panhandling or sleeping in parks), or simply using existing laws in a disproportionate or discriminatory manner, (tickets for drinking in public, jaywalking etc.), the goal is to harass people who are homeless so they stay away from public places – spaces that we are all entitled to use.  The outcome of all this is debt, a greater likelihood of going to jail, and the outright violation of the rights of Canadian citizens.

In recent years, several Canadian studies have highlighted the bidirectional relationship between homelessness and prison (Gaetz & O’Grady, 2006, 2009; Novac, Hermer, Paradis and Kellen, 2007; Kellen et al., 2010).  That is, being homeless means you are more likely to go to prison, and prisoners – unless they receive effective discharge planning and supports, are more likely to become homeless.

All of this raises important questions. If people are afraid of those who are homeless, should the police intervene?  The answer is no.  One might be afraid of someone because of the way they look, their second hand clothes, their ethnic background, or the colour of their skin, but that doesn’t mean they actually pose a real threat.  Using police intervention to respond to public fear that is based on stereotypes and prejudice is unacceptable.  Then why don’t we object when this happens to people who are homeless?

If the general public, business owners and politicians find homeless people annoying or unseemly and don’t want to see them on their streets or sidewalks, is there an obligation for the State to act?  Perhaps there IS an obligation  . . .  but doesn’t it make more sense to address homelessness by ensuring there are the necessary resources and supports (including an adequate supply of affordable housing) to prevent homelessness in the first place or to help people move into permanent housing?  Let’s stop treating the symptom through punishment, and instead let’s go for the cure! 

To read the full reports, visit: 

Can I See Your ID?  The Policing of Youth Homelessness in Toronto 

La judiciarisation des personnes en situation d’itinérance à Québec : point de vue des acteurs socio-judiciaires et analyse du phénomène

Calgary launches its Plan to End Youth Homelessness

I think it’s time to change the way we respond to youth homelessness in Canada.  I began working with homeless youth in the early 1990s at Shout Clinic in Toronto.  At that time, the youth homelessness population was exploding, and communities were scrambling to develop emergency services to meet the immediate needs of vulnerable young people who found themselves on the street.   Today, many years later, we still address youth homelessness primarily through the provision of emergency services, such as shelters, drop-ins and clinics.  Yet for me, the longer I am  involved with the issue of homelessness, the more frustrated I get by the fact that we think this is OK – that it is reasonable to have young people languish in emergency services with limited opportunities, without access to school and with seemingly irrevocable breaches with family.  Our recent report, Family Matters, asks for a radical shift in how we address youth homelessness. 

So, where is the innovation?  Who is going to take the first step?

The Calgary Homeless Foundation just released its “Plan to End Homelessness in Calgary”.  Those interested in what an effective and humane response to youth homelessness could look like should really check this out.  There is no doubt that this is the most innovative plan to address youth homelessness in Canada, and if implemented well, will drastically reduce youth homelessness and give many young people a better chance of growing into adulthood in a safe way, with appropriate supports and opportunities. The basic tenets of the plan weren’t simply pulled from thin air.  They are drawn from a grounded understanding of effective responses to youth homelessness, particularly from the UK and Australia.  Here is what I like about the plan:

Making the case for an investment in youth homelessness

Many places in Canada have few - if any – supports for homeless youth.  In other places, there are designated services, but these do not always recognitize that the causes of youth homelessness (and thus, the solutions) are distinct from those that characterize the adult population.  Communities need to recognize that there is need for a strategic, coordinated and integrated response to youth homelessness based on the developmental needs of young people.

Focus on prevention

The Calgary plan goes farther than any other Canadian community I know of in investing in the prevention of youth homelessness.  Drawing heavily on really creative ideas from the United Kingdom and Australia, this plan demonstrates how you can make prevention work, by: a) putting systems in place that identify young people at risk of homelessness, and giving them and their families the supports they need, b) adopting a policy that ends the institutional practice (child protection services, corrections, mental health) of discharging young people into homelessness, c) recasting the role of emergency shelters and outreach services, and d) encouraging the development of innovative, coordinated and targeted initiatives that stop young people from falling into homelessness, or conversely, to help them transition into independence in a safe and planned way.

Housing for young people

One cannot address youth homelessness if there is not an adequate supply of affordable and supportive housing options.  Recognizing that young people moving into independent living have special needs distinct from adults (most youth have no experience running their own home), the plan includes innovative approaches to housing young people who can no longer return home, or who have no home to go to. 

Case Management and a Common Assessment Framework

An effective response to youth homelessness does not rely on young people figuring things out themselves (I wouldn’t want that for my children).  Rather, there is need for a really good case management approach that prevents young people from slipping through the cracks and in the shelter system for years.  The development and adoption of a ‘common assessment framework’ (widely used in the UK) will allow for effective client-centred planning and programming.

Role of research and data collection

The Calgary plan that draws heavily on what we know about the causes of youth homelessness, but also effective solutions.  It is a strong example of how we can make research matter.  At the same time, the plan calls for effective implementation of a data management system, so that progress can be tracked, systems evaluated and improvements made.

Community engagement

The process by which this plan was developed relied heavily on engagement with community members including service providers in the sector, but more importantly, young people who have experienced homelessness. 

The Calgary plan’s strength lies in its systems level approach that focuses on stopping youth homelessness before it starts and on helping those who do become homeless to successfully move into independent living as soon as possible and with the necessary supports, so that they can grow into adulthood and achieve the promise that we want for all young people.

This is the best plan to address youth homelessness in Canada right now, and CHRA and Eva’s Initiatives are preparing to launch their responses to youth homelessness in short order.  Things are beginning to change after all.

So, what do you think of when you see a kid on the street? What crosses your mind? Is he or she a runaway? A dropout? A kid looking for kicks? Is it a young person fleeing abuse at home? Usually, when we think of teenagers, we also think of them in relation to family. They’re young, so they must have parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, right? But in that moment of contact when you see them sitting on the sidewalk often looking unkept, cold and hungry, family is nowhere to be seen. What comes to my mind when I encounter a homeless youth is that they must be running away from something; something that has clearly gone very wrong.

As a mother, my instinct is that they are vulnerable and need care, and I often wonder how they ended up on the street. I think about whether there is any possibility of reconciling with their families and going home. I also wonder how agencies that serve street youth support them, and what if any efforts are made to help young people reconnect with families? I say this fully cognizant of the fact that many young people are forced to leave very difficult home lives characterized by violence and abuse, and going back may not even be possible.

Our new report, Family Matters (co-authored by Stephen Gaetz and Tara Patton), looks at the experiences of homeless youth and the efforts of Family Reconnect, a unique program delivered through Eva’s Initiatives. Through assessment, counseling and help that allows young people to access appropriate services and supports, the Family Reconnect team work to help young people address underlying conflicts within their families, and hopefully improve relationships to the point that they are able to return home, or move into the community, ideally with family support. Family reconnection can mean making contact with a mom or dad, but also an uncle, aunt, sibling or grandparent. If contact is not possible or desired by a young person, Family Reconnect counselors can help youth come to terms with this reality and move forward with their lives in a healthy and productive way.

Our research demonstrates that for many homeless youth and those at risk of homelessness, family does matter. We have found that not only do youth express the desire to improve relations with family, but that often the problems that forced these kids to leave home have more to do with family member’s struggles with mental health, abuse, poverty and/or addictions, rather than with the problems of the youth themselves. We also found that in many cases, family members couldn’t cope with the challenges of undiagnosed learning or mental health issues of youth, and this can often lead to youth homelessness.

Providing youth and their families with needed support and counseling can lead to the early identification of underlying issues and challenges. From there, the necessary supports can lay the foundation for potential reconciliation with family or community, or allow the young person to move towards independent living in a safe and planned way.

The report also highlights the importance of prevention as a key strategy to addressing youth homelessness. In countries like Australia and the United Kingdom, their response to youth homelessness stresses preventive strategies, including programs in schools to help identify and support young people at risk, early intervention programs that include family mediation, counseling and support, and respite housing to give young people and their families a ‘time out’ period in the midst of a heated conflict. This preventive orientation makes a lot of sense and appears to be very effective in providing young people and their families with the supports they need.

Unfortunately in Canada, preventive programs like Family Reconnect are the exception rather than the rule. More often than not, our response to youth homelessness is characterized by the provision of emergency services such as shelters and day programs. As good as many of these programs are, they tend to focus on helping young people become self-sufficient instead of considering the benefits of helping young people reconnect with family. That is, from this perspective, the family is seen only as part of a young person’s past, not as part of their future. In this report, we propose a radical rethinking of the way we respond to youth homelessness in Canada; one that places prevention and family reconnection at the centre of our response. This is not a cynical appeal to ‘family values’. Rather, it is a call to consider the role that family reconnection can play in helping young people avoid homelessness, and support those who are homeless in moving off the streets as quickly as possible. Have a look at the report. Now what will come to mind the next you cross paths with a homeless youth? Don’t you agree that this kind of reform is necessary?

To access the full report, see:  Family Matters: Homeless Youth & Eva's Initiative's Family Reconnect Program

Daphne Winland is Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director for the Department of Anthropology at York University.

Would you be outraged if your child was exposed to violence?  Would your community consider this unacceptable? 

That’s what I thought.

Then why do we, as a society, tolerate this when it comes to homeless youth?

In 2009, Bill O’Grady and I interviewed 244 homeless youth in Toronto.  We asked them about their life on the streets and if they’d ever been a victim of crime.  What we found was astounding and we’ve documented it in our report: Surviving Crime and Violence: Street Youth Victimization in Toronto (2010).

People tend to think of homeless youth as trouble makers and delinquents; as perpetrators of crime rather than victims.  But that’s not what we found.  In reality, street youth are often the victims of violent crime.  This is mainly because of the vulnerability they face by not having a home.  To make matters worse, we found that this victimization isn’t really being addressed by the police or the courts. 

Here are some of the Key findings from our research:

• When young people become homeless, they are much more likely than youth with homes to be victims of crime and violence.
• Young women in particular are much more likely to be victimized, and report high levels of sexual assault and partner abuse.
• The younger you are, and the earlier you leave home, the more vulnerable you are to criminal victimization.
• The solution to this problem lies in changing the way we address youth homelessness.

If the levels of violence and crime found in our study were experienced by any other group in Canada, there would be immediate public outrage and pressure for the government to take action. Street youth deserve that same level of outrage directed toward their personal safety. They deserve the same response that any other group in Canada is entitled to.

I have written about this subject before, and with this new research, I am even more convinced that our current response to youth homelessness is not working. There is no doubt that being homeless puts young people at a high risk for violence and crime, and that we should be doing anything and everything we can to give young people the safety and support they need to get off the streets.

For street youth to have an opportunity to move forward in life, they need to be safe and protected from all forms of crime. Having a roof over ones head should not be a factor here and we need to press our government to make changes so that young people who become homeless have real options.

You can find the report, which includes our findings, recommendations and much more on the Homeless Hub.

Stephen Gaetz talks about street youth as victims of crime. Watch the video

Listen to Stephen's interview with CBC Metro Morning.

Surviving Crime and Violence: Street Youth Victimization in Toronto was created for Justice for Children and Youth and was written by Stephen Gaetz, Bill O’Grady and Kristy Buccieri.

When you hear the word “homelessness,” what comes to mind? If you are like most people, you probably think of the men who sleep on the hot-air grates in downtown Toronto. That is the image that so often accompanies media stories about homelessness.

Several things about that image hide the reality of homelessness for many Canadians. The first part is the person’s gender and age. There are many homeless women and children too, although in their case it seldom takes the form of sleeping on the street. That is another problem with the image – it equates homelessness with street life. In reality, homelessness can take multiple forms, including moving from shelter to shelter or “couch-surfing” (that is, staying with friends when one loses one’s own home).

The image usually features a solitary figure, which obscures the fact that entire families may become homeless. Indeed, some of those who appear to be alone may simply be separated from their families by homelessness. Finally, the setting (downtown in a big city) is a cliché. Homelessness exists in towns and cities of all sizes, in the suburbs and in rural areas, and in all the provinces of Canada.

Last year, I helped edit an online book collecting the best Canadian research available on homelessness. The thirty chapters encompassed the experiences of women and their children, Aboriginal people, frail seniors, youth, immigrants (some of whom become homeless shortly after arriving in Canada). They included research on food insecurity, social stigma, moneymaking strategies, child custody, the physical and mental health problems of homeless people, and the intersection of homelessness and crime, as well as promising efforts to reduce homelessness or alleviate some of its effects.

Did we cover the full spectrum of the problem? Not even close. This week we added another ten chapters to fill the many gaps.

One important new chapter is about homelessness among women in Canada’s North, a particularly urgent issue. Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut share a high cost of living, limited employment opportunities, underdeveloped infrastructure, and a shortage of social services. Women who lose their housing have few places to turn. Yet we hear very little about their plight in the rest of Canada.

Another chapter deals with homelessness among Aboriginal peoples in the Prairie provinces. This group spends a lot of time on the move, and many go back and forth between urban centres that offer work, services, and a wider range of housing options, and their home communities, which offer a connection to family and traditions. Yet in neither place are these people completely at home.

A third chapter looks at homeless women in small cities and towns in Ontario, social isolation, low-quality social services, and weak public transit infrastructure create barriers to seeking help.

We also consider the ethics of research into homelessness. It is important to understand and communicate the experiences of people who often have no voice in society, but it is equally important not to appropriate their voices. Many of the chapters contain the words of homeless people, men and women, young and old, describing their stories and tryng to make sense of an arduous life in a hostile world.

In presenting these diverse perspectives on homelessness, we hope to remind Canadians that homeless has not disappeared, even though the recent economic downturn has meant that many people are too worried about their own futures to pay attention to the plight of those even less fortunate.

At the same time, we stress that although homelessness affects a diverse group of people, it is not a complex problem. Yes, you read that correctly: it is not a complex problem.

After all these years of research and policy analysis and documenting the lived experience of those affected and those who provide support services, we know what the causes of the problem are. That means we know what the solutions are.

When individuals or families run into serious difficulty in one or more of the three key areas that support a decent standard of living, they may find themselves unhoused and potentially on a downward spiral. The three areas are: housing, income, and support services. Groups already facing inequities, discrimination, and violence are often the first to face difficulties in these areas when the economic tide changes.

An adequate standard of living means not only that good-quality health care is available to everyone, but also access to adequate housing, employment at a living wage, and essential support services must also be available for everyone, not just those who can afford them – and that systemic inequities are addressed in social policy.

We know what we need. We need social protections that prevent people from becoming unhoused. We need programs that ensure that no one will be unhoused for more than a very brief period should a crisis of some sort arise. We need policies that correct historic and systemic inequities, and that provide adequate, affordable and secure housing, an adequate income or income support when needed, and adequate support services if these are required (for addictions, mental health, and so on). Only then will we begin to solve the problem of homelessness.

J. David Hulchanski is Associate Director, Research, for the Cities Centre and Professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto, and co-editor of an electronic book on homelessness, Finding Home, available on the Homeless Hub, www.homelesshub.ca/FindingHome.