HOMELESSNESS and the HOMELESS: Responses and Innovations
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HOMELESSNESS AND THE HOMELESS: Responses and Innovations A Canadian Contribution to IYSH 1987 H. Peter Oberlander and Arthur L Fallick The Centre for Human Settlements Faculty of Graduate Studies The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada HOMELESSNESS AND THE HOMELESS: RESPONSES AND INNOVATIONS A CANADIAN CONTRIBUTION TO IYSH 1987 by H. Peter Oberlander and Arthur L. Fallick ****** Centre for Human Settlements The University of British Columbia 1988 The research and publication of this report was made possible through a generous grant from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC); the views expressed are the personal views of the authors. TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE 1 THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF SHELTER FOR THE HOMELESS 3 Objectives of the International Year 5 Global Conditions and the IYSH 6 Sources of Homelessness in Canada 11 Numerical Estimates 12 Canada's Homeless 13 CANADIAN INITIATIVES DURING THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR 17 Regional Initiatives 17 Traditional Support for the Poor and Disadvantaged 21 SELECTED CANADIAN SOLUTIONS 26 Criteria for Selecting Canadian Solutions 26 Demonstrating Successful Initiatives 59 A FRAMEWORK FOR ACTION BEYOND THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR 131 BIBLIOGRAPHY 141 PREFACE The International Year of Shelter for the Home senior and experienced colleagues together with less focussed attention on the plight of the graduate students, to discuss the issue of home homeless nationally and internationally. Canada lessness, review relevant papers and advise on Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canada's approach and scope of analysis. Their collective national housing agency, served as the national contribution is deeply appreciated. focal point and supported a wide range of The haunting line drawings portraying the initiatives to identify and highlight the best homeless in their daily search for shelter, means of aiding the homeless and alleviating food, clothing and dignity of life, are the work homelessness. Among these initiatives and as an of Naomi Spiers a well-known Canadian west- integral part of Canada's participation in IYSH coast painter and sculptor. The drawings were the Centre for Human Settlements at the Uni based on her daily contact with the homeless versity of British Columbia was invited to and Naomi Spiers deserves our admiration and identify, analyse, and select practical solutions gratitude for this sensitive and evocative pre to homelessness in Canada which demonstrate sentation. a variety of successful approaches based on Special thanks are due to Shirley Marcus, regional differences, local needs, and effectively Administrative Assistant at the UBC Centre combining public and private resources. who was responsible for extensive editorial work A progress report on the initial analysis on and the production of the final report. the nature, scope and causes of homelessness Homelessness, while broadly pervasive, reflects in Canada was submitted to UNCHS 10 at its prevailing economic, social and political cir meeting in Nairobi in 1987. The current report cumstances. The homeless themselves are diverse completes the research project by integrating and represent social and economic diversity the analysis of cause and effect of homelessness deeply rooted in the process of urbanization. in Canada with selected successful solutions While Canada has its share of the homeless representative of public and private initiatives and has become acutely aware of the causes of across the country. The projects selected meet homelessness it has also begun to solve the the criteria and guidelines established by the problems identified, through a variety of locally- UN Commisison on Human Settlements for dem based projects and programs. Therein lies Can onstration projects which have been adapted to ada's best hope of alleviating homelessness in meet Canadian circumstances. the years following IYSH through the deter Research and analysis provide conclusive evi mined application of the partnership of public dence that while homelessness in Canada is a and private resources. The current report may readily identifiable phenomenon particularly in contribute to a clearer understanding of the the major metropolitan areas it is subject to causes and effects of homelessness and also public policy intervention and substantive im give hope to the homeless themselves and to provement through the combined application of those concerned with eliminating homelessness public and private inititatives and resources. The in Canada. projects selected for detailed analysis and pre sentation indicate that a partnership of public and private agencies, together with the home less themselves is capable of substantively and H. Peter Oberlander substantially assisting the homeless and alleviat Director ing homelessness on a continuing basis. Centre for Human Settlements The research project and the current report The University of British Columbia has had the generous financial support of Vancouver, Canada CMHC and was made possible through the ex tensive co-operation of many provincial agen H. Peter Oberlander, Professor of Regional Plan cies and departments concerned with shelter ning at the University of British Columbia has provision and the alleviation of homelessness. been member of the Canadian Delegation to the In particular the focal points in each province UN Commission on Human Settlements since it and the two territories materially asssited in convened in Mexico City in 1980. collecting information, analysing data and pro viding illustrations for this publication. Arthur L. Fallick, Research Associate at the The preliminary as well as the final report Centre for Human Settlements, University of was based on two Invitational Seminars con British Columbia, is a graduate of the University vened by the Centre which allowed a group of of Dundee. The International Year of Shelter for the Home less raises questions that run to the heart of the human condition and for which answers are not in any sense evident. The IYSH is a way of consciousness raising around the world; a year where the issues are so urgent and the necessary responses so passionately held that perhaps we might evidence a break-through. Honourable Stephen Lewis, Canada's Ambas sador to the United Nations, Vancouver, May 1987. THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF SHELTER FOR THE HOMELESS On 29 September 1980, His Excellency Prime UNCHS (Habitat) to the Fourth Session of the Minister Premadasa of Sri Lanka addressed the Commission on Human Settlements held in thirty-fifth session of the General Assembly of Manila in 1981, and confirmed in Resolution the United Nations: 4/2 of that Session. It was also furthered in a note by the Secretary-General to, and in Resolu tion 1981/69b by, the second regular session in 1981 of the Economic and Social Council. During its thirty-sixth session the General In the rush for development, urbanization bos run Assembly decided to designate 1987 as the out of control, spawning ugly slums and gbettoes, International Year of Shelter for the Homeless depopulating rural areas and overcrowding conurba (Resolution 36/71 of 4 December 1981), re tions. Urban poverty, congestion and squalor are questing the Executive Director of UNCHS (Hab problems common to many of our developing countries. itat) to prepare a proposal containing a specific It is said that as much as 20 percent of our program of measures and activities to be under people are seriously undernourished in the developing taken prior to and during the year. The re countries; 50 percent do not have safe water; 60 quired report was submitted to, and endorsed percent do not have proper health care; 20 percent by the fifth session of the Commission on of the babies die before they reach the age of 5. Human Settlements in 1982.2 There are equally depressing figures for unemploy During the Tenth (Commemorative) Session of ment, education and other basic needs. Housing the Commission in Nairobi, in April 1987, provides a key to the solution of several of these Prime Minister Premadasa observed that: disabilities. The problem of housing is not confined to Sri . although much had been accomplished, Lanka. It is not a problem confined to Asia. It is a development efforts had failed to correct the global problem. basic condition that they addressed. The prin The replacement of shanties with decent housing is cipal task was therefore to fashion a new, not a peripheral part of development. It is at the accelerated and sustainable approach to devel very core. It is an investment in mankind.' opment. From a review of the experiences of the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless (IYSH), it was evident that shelter could become a new organizing principle of development, provided that it could meet The Prime Minister proposed the declaration the critical criteria of acceptability, affordability, of a special international year to be dedicated durability and viability. He reminded the to the problems of the millions of people who commission that the IYSH was not an end in are homeless or who live in shanties and itself, that follow-up action must be secured, substandard houses - the poorest of the poor and that the International Year would be throughout the world. judged not by the material content of the This proposal was accepted and subsequently efforts but by their moral impact; it was not confirmed by the General Assembly through only shelter that was being built but also Resolution 35/76 of 5 December 1980; it was values; not only societies being developed