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Many homeless gainfully employed in city |
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Written by Gerald Gauthier
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Friday, 03 October 2008 |
It might seem the most likely place to find the city’s homeless population is on the streets. More and more, however, we’re likely to encounter them while they’re at work.
Of the people occupying the city’s emergency shelter, 40 per cent have part-time or full-time jobs, says Diane Randell, manager of community and social development for the City of Lethbridge.
The reason they’re at the shelter, she says, is that even though they have jobs, they still can’t find anywhere to live that they can afford.
With the city’s rental vacancy rate holding steady at zero, rents for single-bedroom apartments are as high as $950 a month. And at as much as $1,050 a month, rents for two-bedroom apartments in Lethbridge are among the highest in Canada.
According to Statistics Canada, anyone earning $17,000 a year or less is deemed to be living below the low-income threshold — the poverty level. Randell estimates roughly 17 per cent of Lethbridge residents are living below the poverty level. That’s nearly 14,000 people.
Currently, there are nearly 1,000 people in Lethbridge who can’t afford or can’t find a place of their own and, consequently, wind up going to bed at night in overcrowded conditions, she says.
Two or three families are likely to crowd into a house designed for one; five or six students will cram into an apartment built for two.
Many others will “couch surf,” she says. “They’ll stay at one friend’s house after another until they wear out their welcome.
“They’re not necessarily on the street,” she says. “They’re the hidden homeless.”
Living in such conditions takes a toll on people’s health, children’s learning ability and adults’ efforts to develop healthier lifestyle habits, she adds. Sleep deprivation is common.
Lethbridge was the only city in Alberta last year where the vacancy rate didn’t increase. Given the current situation, she adds, even if additional living units became available, they would fill up immediately and the vacancy rate would still be zero.
Provincially, as housing prices and housing starts skyrocketed since 2005, rental stocks declined, according to a study recently released by the Calgary-based Canada West Foundation. Alberta’s rental stock was only slightly larger in 2006 than it was in 1991, the study says.
The study, entitled A Roof Over Our Heads 2008, found although government spending on housing has jumped in the last two years, it was largely in response to a growing problem that some saw as inevitable. It cites Alberta as an example of what went wrong with affordable housing and homelessness in Canada: that while the population was growing 10 per cent from 2002 to 2007 and housing prices were skyrocketing, government investment in housing was either cut or was stagnant.
For 2007 and 2008, Lethbridge has received $5 million in provincial funding for affordable housing. Of that, $2 million was used to buy the 79-unit Castle Apartment downtown; $1 million has been allocated for a new native women’s transition home; and $2 million is still undesignated.
But money alone can’t solve the problem, Randell says.
A greater range of government incentives for developers to build low-income housing, she says, would make a substantial difference.
Then there’s the problem of community attitudes toward such developments. Often low-income housing proposals encounter stiff resistance from neighbouring residents. Recently, residents of Staffordville voiced their displeasure with a proposal to establish a native women’s transition home in a former church at 9 Avenue and 7 Street North.
Unfortunately, she says, opposition is often based more on misperceptions and fear rather than on facts.
“I think it’s about building relationships in a neighbourhood. It’s about building a welcoming and inclusive community,” she says.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 10 August 2009 )
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