Last week at the Homeless Hub we observed World Food Day and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. It's easy to discard these days here in Canada and just think of hunger and poverty as issues for the developing world. However, poverty and hunger do affect Canadians. According to the latest data from the Ontario Association of Food Banks over 17,000 households turned to food banks for the first time last year in Ontario alone.
In her latest post, Naomi Dachner connected the dots of food insecurity right here at home where 3.9 million households, including 1.1 million chilrden, live in conditions of food insecurity. Our Friday "Ask The Hub" post was dedicated breaking misconceptions of poverty in Canada by presenting a couple local case studies. These studies look to dispel myths of poverty and identify what it is and why it needs to be tackled.
Vancouver kicked off Homeless Action Week yesterday. With 40 events planned and the focus geared to 'invisible homelessness' it's sure going to be an informative week!
The Daily Extra covered a presentation that I. Alex Abramovich made to Toronto's city hall on the growing crisis of LGBTQ youth homelessness. With a lack of training, shelter staff aren't given the tools to deal with homophobia and transphobia in the shelter system. This pushes more and more LGBTQ youth to the streets.
In research a new report just came out on the unmet healthcare needs of persons suffering from drug addictions. This report examined data from Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa and found that homeless and vulnerably housed persons with drug addictions lack access to addiction treatment. The researchers recommend addiction treatments be developed and integrated within community strategies to answer these unmet healthcare needs.
An interesting report on Calgary just came out too. When service providers in Calgary were asked why they should undertake programming for Aboriginal peoples they questioned the necessity of it. The Calgary Homeless Foundation began to collect data on the Aboriginal homeless population in the city and found that members of this community tended to be younger, less educated, more likely to be unemployed, have experienced foster care and have been victims of an attack. This shows that there is a need to pay attention to the needs of Aboriginal peoples in making plans to end homelessness.
In case you haven't heard the Canadian Homelessness Research Network, Research Impact and the City Institute are teaming up to host Suzanne Fitzpatrick who is presenting the findings of a study on the nature of multiple exclusion homelessness in 7 UK cities. The seminar and webinar are both free to attend. They will be on Tuesday October 22nd from 10 to 11 in Room 626 in the Kaneff Tower. You can still register for the event here. And if you can't make it in person you can stream the video!
The first ever National Conference on Ending Homelessness is also coming up later this month in Ottawa, ON from October 28th to 30th. For whatever role or interest you have in regards to homelessness the program has something for you. And registration is still open!