Canadian Observatory on Homelessness
The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness is the largest national research institute devoted to homelessness in Canada. The COH is the curator of the Homeless Hub.
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The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness is the largest national research institute devoted to homelessness in Canada. The COH is the curator of the Homeless Hub.
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Author(s): Chris Traber
Publication Date: 2011
Their unheated shelter rests on salvaged wood skids to keep the tent floor above the frozen ground.
A blue tarp is draped over the skin-thin fabric to kill the winter wind.
Canned food is kept under a towel on a plastic lawn chair.
Edward Oxtoby and his son, Damian, call this home.
Author(s): Chris Traber
Publication Date: 2010
Humiliation, hurt, hunger. Anger, pain and fear. Ordinary York Region citizens reported an extraordinary orbit of emotions as participants of last week’s Do The Math Challenge; five days on the diet of a person living in poverty.
Author(s): Chris Traber, Adam Mc Lean
Publication Date: 2010
Released from prison last year, Segun Akinsanya, 22, had a dream and no one to turn to. “When I left prison, I looked for a job and no one would hire me,” the soft-spoken Richmond Hill resident said. “My dream was to create my own job, starting a grassroots program for youth.” He was referred to Pathways Home Base. Sitting on the front steps of the tidy and busy Pathways youth drop-in centre, tucked off Yonge Street in Richmond Hill, he...
Author(s): Chris Traber
Publication Date: 2010
We’re products of our environment and our living conditions determine if we stay healthy or become ill, a York University study says. “Health and poverty are directly linked,” Vaughan Community Health Centre executive director Isabel Araya said in response to Social Determinants of Health: The Canadian Facts. “The poorer you are, the sicker you are.”
Author(s): Chris Traber
Publication Date: 2008
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...
Author(s): Chris Traber
Publication Date: 2008
He has been a labourer, custodian, house painter and pool builder.
He’s recovering from alcohol, drug and gambling addictions.
He is, by his own definition, chronically homeless.
Born in Newmarket and raised in Richmond Hill, Kevin is an artist by nature and a survivor by necessity.
As Grafi, one of his three pseudonyms, he inspired Hidden in Plain Sight: Homelessness in York Region, the poignant photography project launched this week at the Varl...
Author(s): Chris Traber
Publication Date: 2008
Define poverty and it can be defeated, Nipissing University school of business and economics director Chris Sarlo told Fraser Institute luncheon guests Friday. The associate professor of economics, institute adjunct scholar and veteran researcher synopsized his recently completed What is Poverty? Providing Clarity for Canada, published by the institute. Efforts to accurately measure and define poverty in Canada have been hindered by inconsi...
Author(s): Chris Traber
Publication Date: 2008
Homeless in our communities is an unseen plight, endured by adults and youth. It’s cruel enough, regardless of your age, but if you’re a homeless woman, York Region is a mean and ignoble place. There are no shelters for homeless women in the region.
Author(s): David Fleischer, Chris Traber
Publication Date: 2009
What’s a little deficit between friends? Despite long touting ideological opposition to the idea, the Harper Conservative government unveiled a federal budget awash in spending on infrastructure and other programs in a bid to stimulate a troubled economy. So, what does it mean for York Region? The short answer is it’s too early to say. York Region’s social service administrators and front line workers are modestly buoyed by the budget’s...
Author(s): Chris Traber
Publication Date: 2009
Mobility, upward, physical or otherwise, simply isn't an option for many of York Region's poor. A pilot transportation project, championed by the York Region Alliance to End Homelessness in partnership with a dozen local organizations, including York Region Transit, may put at-risk residents on the road to a better life.
Author(s): Chris Traber
Publication Date: 2010
A disturbing phenomenon — the new poor — is emerging in our communities, York Region representatives at Wednesday’s provincial Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition forum heard. The term for a growing demographic is becoming increasingly and alarmingly mainstream, Poverty Action for Change Coalition chairperson Tom Pearson said. “Hundreds of thousands of Canadians are becoming the new poor,” said Mr. Pearson, who was part of an 11-...
Author(s): Chris Traber
Publication Date: 2009
“York is a hard region to get attached to in a social sense,” Richmond Hill resident Tanya Shute said. As executive director of the Krasman Centre, a Yonge Street storefront helping the marginalized and homeless, Ms Shute experiences the full spectrum of life in York. “The regional government makes it hard to have a neighbourhood focus,” she said. Her Mill Pond neighbourhood, she explained, feels like a community. However, that’s an exc...
Author(s): Chris Traber
Publication Date: 2010
York Region residents living in poverty will no longer remain invisible and silent. In April, marginalized adults and children living below the poverty line will be seen and heard in a provincial social audit The report will be part of the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition.
Author(s): Chris Traber
Publication Date: 2010
“Poverty is pretending that you forgot your lunch,” said one resident included in the York Region Food Network’s 2009 hunger report, released last week. Food bank clients spoke about being homeless, feeling like failures as a parents and their children being bullied because they don’t have the same food and clothes as other kids.