- A Crisis in our towns and cities
Few of us really take the time to appreciate just how precarious our lives are. The veneer of our security is surprisingly fragile; our sometimes lack of appreciation can make us unfairly biased against people whose circumstances have not been as fortunate as ours.
A friend recently shared a story with me about her adult stepson who was quite angry with a group of people who were continuously trespassing in a building that he was working to renovate. According to my friend, he was ranting to her because he believed these people should find somewhere else to go, the police should arrest them, and they should just provide for themselves as the rest of us do; she spoke to me because she did not know how to even begin to address his rage.
His feelings are not uncommon, particularly among middle-aged, typically white, middle-class people in our country and I find them unfair, biased, and completely offensive.
My friend asked me what she might do to help him see the real needs of vulnerable people in our communities. I suggested she ask him to consider that homelessness could happen to any of us, including him, and to give some examples of just how precarious many of us are and why.
The drywaller – Her stepson is a drywaller in his mid-forties and recently divorced. As part of the settlement, he and his wife had to sell their home and he is now living in an apartment. The settlement was fair, but I asked what if it hadn’t been, especially with a child involved. What if the settlement had been one-sided in favor of his ex-wife, leaving him with substantial monthly payments to make; these settlements are very common and could have happened to him very easily.
Currently, in his community, as in many others, renting is much more expensive than paying a mortgage, assuming you can find an apartment. As a result, his monthly expenses would be substantially higher than what he was accustomed to before the divorce.
Then as a self-employed tradesperson, what would happen if he got hurt at work, and was unable to work for several months. Drywalling is very strenuous and it is not inconceivable that he could suffer a back injury. As a self-employed person, worker’s compensation does not cover him and as a small contractor, he likely does not have health insurance.
As a result of his divorce, his savings, and equity from the house sale would be a fraction of what they were only months before. His child support, rent, living, and medical expenses could very rapidly exhaust his already depleted fund within months and unable to pay he could find himself evicted. Perhaps, he could find temporary accommodation, but as his expenses accumulate, he could lose everything as many others have.
Neither I nor his stepmother wants to see this happen to him, but we would like him to realize how easy it is for this scenario to play out. It can and does happen that quickly.
The Hospital Nurse – When I worked for the United Way, one day I noticed out of a window overlooking a shared driveway there was a seemingly attractive woman squatting relieving herself. Surprised, I did not expect to see something like that in a busy commercial/residential area of our town. I mentioned what I saw to a coworker and they told me it happens all the time.
They knew who the woman was; she had been a nurse at the hospital for many years and had a family with grown children who had experienced some mental health issues compounded by her developing some very unhealthy addictions. Despite everyone’s best efforts, she did not get the support she needed and eventually ended up on the street. Without effective support, she had turned to prostitution to supply her drug needs and her mental health condition suffered even more.
The staff regularly tried to help, but before long she had been on the street too long, had suffered from a toxic drug supply, had been regularly sexually abused, and as well she only rarely took her mental health medication. Soon she became just one more person who had fallen through the cracks in our small city.
That was a few years ago. I saw her recently and although she would still likely been in her early fifties, she appeared dangerously thin and looked to be decades older than what she actually was.
People like the drywaller don’t understand the holes in our social safety net, this nurse had a good job and a family, but through inadequate care and insufficient resources, her life will never be the same and will end much more prematurely than it needs to. Unfortunately, her story is not uncommon. It can and does happen that quickly.
The welder – A few years ago I hired a person to work for my then employer. She was a single mom with two small girls who had recently been divorced. She was struggling to provide for her children and the strain was taking a visible toll on her. Just two years previously she had been married, lived in a nice house, and had a very bright future. Her husband worked for a large power company and was a skilled tradesman.
He got hurt at work and unlike the drywaller, had medical coverage; however, he was prescribed an opiate-based painkiller, which was the new “go-to” drug for pain relief. Unfortunately, he became addicted and while getting prescribed was easy, getting effective addiction relief was not. He entered a vicious downward spiral that ended in divorce and his death due to an accidental overdose. The family lost the house and the mom and her two daughters ended up spending the winter in an unheated summer cottage, where the landlord told her to turn on the oven and open the door to heat the cottage.
They went from having a great life and growing family to nothing over just a few years because of an unexpected accident. Their story is not uncommon. It can and does happen that quickly.
The student – The lack of affordable and safe housing is one of the greatest social issues facing our communities at the moment. Most financial counselors say a person or family should spend between 30 and 40% of their income on accommodation. The reality in most cities and towns across our country is people actually spend upwards of 80 to 100% on housing, leaving nothing or very little to meet their other life needs.
Students attending college or university are particularly hard hit by this reality. Many students are saddled with annual leases they cannot afford, and many have part-time jobs on top of their full-time studies. Often they double and triple up with roommates in spaces designed for single occupancy just to cover the rent cost. For those who cannot find accommodation, many of these students teeter on the cusp of homelessness. It can and does happen that quickly.
The senior citizen – While working during the pandemic with various volunteer organizations, I became aware of many stories of seniors who experienced homelessness or came very close to being homeless.
Many have worked all of their lives only to experience unexpected hardships after retirement. Fixed incomes fall prey to rising inflation and product shrinkflation. A divorce or separation later in life can place unbearable financial strain on one or both of the partners. The death of a partner or spouse can dramatically reduce already limited incomes as well as increase emotional stress. Additionally, unplanned repairs can evaporate savings nest eggs.
One of my coworkers encountered a senior, a woman living in a nice older house, who had to have her roof repaired during the summer and exhausted her savings to have the work done. Her pension was insufficient and by the middle of winter had no heat for her house, a social worker was able to intervene, but this demonstrated the precariousness of her life. Like many seniors, she lives in fear that she will outlive her money.
Another elderly woman in a similar situation had to resort to eating cat food because after her housing was paid for, there was no money left for food, much less anything else. I have spoken with many other people who have lost their homes, and who never thought they would be experiencing homelessness; all were scared, confused, and suffered greatly when faced with leaving the memories of a lifetime behind because all they could keep was what they could carry.
These people all lived in affluent towns and villages, worked all of their lives, and are representative of just how quickly homelessness can and does happen.
The Others – We have not even discussed other barriers that also influence those who experience homelessness. The myth of our social safety net affects people with disabilities who receive a fraction of what actual living costs are. Decades of government inaction and cuts to social services have led to an epidemic of people, from students to single moms and families to senior citizens having to cope with experiencing homelessness.
Those examples, I have provided are the figurative “tip of the iceberg.” There are more people, Members of First Nations, new Canadians, and people whose first language is not English experience homelessness in large numbers as well. The effects of trauma can combine with those circumstances to affect people, as well as the growing number of people experiencing multi-generational poverty.
For my friend’s stepson, my hope is we can convince him to see the blindness of reality that he possesses. If we can convince him and more people like him to see and empathize with the growing number of people, who are just like us who are experiencing poverty and homelessness, then as a society we can work towards a solution that is both inclusive and comprehensive.
We live in a wealthy country, but the disparity between rich and poor is growing larger with each passing moment. All of us must look with compassion instead of anger at those people among us, who could with one or two changes of fortune be us, with more compassion, helpfulness, and empathy than we do.
Those people her stepson railed against, the people occupying that building were trying to find someplace warm, out of the cold. Shelter space is limited in most towns, it is dangerous, people are afraid, and they are regularly assaulted, and raped. They don’t want to be homeless but have no place to go.
All of us need to appreciate our own precariousness because homelessness can happen to us, our grandparents, our friends, people we know, and our children and homelessness can and does happen that quickly.
Please see, understand, and help,
Paul