Monday’s public forum, an opportunity to launch an updated York Region community plan to end homelessness — a blueprint for community action — was also choreographed to help shed a harsh light on the perceived invisibility of those without a home and hope. The action plan, detailing cause, effect and proposed solutions, lists poverty as the genesis of homelessness. The number of men, women and children living on or below the poverty line in our region has grown to 13 per cent, a three-point spike in as many years and a 55-per-cent increase since 2001, Alliance public education co-ordinator Jane Wedlock said. Of our 112,500 at-risk residents, 85 per cent live in York’s three southern municipalities, Markham, Richmond Hill and Vaughan, she said.