Let me invite you to where I live.
As a visitor coming to our community, you would see our town is just like any number of communities in Ontario.
Situated on the shores of one of the great lakes, we have nice beaches, amazing sunsets, swimming, fishing, museums, a library, and other attractions. Our local sporting events are entertaining and well-attended at all levels; we have schools and a good college, and people come here to work, to play, and to be entertained. We have a police department, a fire department, and a regional hospital.
There is real wealth here, unemployment is less than five percent, and many find it a desirable place to live and even for vacations.
That’s all I used to see too.
I needed to look closer because there was much more, things I didn’t want to see, things I couldn’t see or even imagined were here.
What did I see?
One in seven people in my community doesn’t have enough food to eat. Many of them are spending more than 80% of their income on housing leaving not enough to survive. Many of those with housing live in fear of “renoviction,” and still others are afraid to complain about black mold. Those people who need emergency housing have a five-year wait list and don’t get to choose which community they have to accept housing in, if they refuse, they drop to the bottom of the list again. One in four people will have some form of mental health experience this year, ranging from mild to severe depression, or addiction, and all suffer from insufficient resources.
Come with me and let’s take a walk together.
Let’s look in the corners, let’s take a walk deeper into the town, away from the harbor and the touristy things. We might see a lineup at a repurposed building downtown, each month more than 10,000 meals are provided to children, adults, and seniors. You might ask who they are; they are families, single parents, and people you would not expect. Some are one hundred fifty homeless who live on our streets every night, some are on government assistance, some have a mental illness, some are seniors, some are working at minimum wage, and others are friends and strangers who could be you. People who never thought they would ever need this kind of help. They are the visible ones; national statistics show that they are part of the one in four people who seek help from food banks. The other 75% who need help struggle alone and might as well be invisible.
Look closer.
What do else you see?
More of us than you would think have to decide on whether to eat or pay the rent. Housing prices have increased by more than 50% in two years and there is a five-year wait for government housing. Some municipal leaders say our current generation of seniors is the wealthiest in Canadian history, which generally is true. The reality though, there are many of our seniors falling through the gaps. In a community where the living wage is more than twenty-two dollars/hour what was once considered the middle class is now facing poverty, something many in our community almost refuse to acknowledge.
You ask, “What could threaten the prosperity that comes with rising property values?”
Rising housing values are creating wealth that exists on paper but not in wallets. Those rising prices will be followed by a corresponding increase in property taxes as market value assessment catches up. The lack of affordable and safe housing not only contributes to food insecurity, but soon, those “on-paper” wealthy seniors living on fixed incomes may not be able to afford to pay their property tax as it doubles to reflect the “new” market pricing. Our town’s lack of mixed-density housing doesn’t give seniors anywhere to “down-size” because developers have no incentive to build smaller homes and apartments.
Successive conservative governments insist the private sector will provide “affordable housing” without ever explaining why a private developer would choose to build rental housing when they can build luxury housing or condos and make far more money.
Let’s keep walking.
Look closer.
What do you see?
A park. Donated by one of the town’s earliest families, it is beautiful. A river cuts through it, and there are trees, hills, and playground equipment. By the way, don’t take off your shoes. It’s better than it was, but you can never be too careful. It is very possible you could see a used syringe. A local initiative now offers a gift card for groceries in return for containers of used needles. In the first 6 months of 2021, more than 38,000 “sharps” were removed from our town, many by some of those people suffering from substance use.
You thought drugs were only a problem in the big cities. The opiate crisis is here too, during the pandemic more people died over overdoses than died of COVID. We need safe injection sites, we need a safe and prescribed supply to replace the poison currently available on the street, and we need “wrap-around” services to deal with the traumas that create addictions. We also need the will to acknowledge our biases and misconceptions, realizing that drug use is a medical issue, not a criminal issue.
Let’s keep walking.
Most in our community are like I was, either blind to the problem or unaware of the issues. Local law enforcement does a good job enforcing our current laws. However, each time “accessible” drugs are removed from the street, those suffering from drug addictions have to seek increasingly dangerous sources of supply, victimizing those people even more. Imagine how our “law and order” zealots, some of whom have fought against community gardens, would react if we had safe injection sites and/or a prescribed safe drug supply to really make a difference in harm reduction. Yet to really solve the problem, virtually every expert says that is exactly what is necessary.
Let’s keep walking; we’ll head back by taking a shortcut down a dark alley.
Did you know in most rural communities there are no public washrooms after 11 pm at night? The most basic of human needs is denied. I now notice in the early morning hours or late at night, feet sticking out of a blanket or sleeping bag, or a lean-to made from cardboard in alleys and storefronts. On any given night, you might see the more vulnerable people and families of our community trying to shelter where they can. Runaways, migrants, seniors, families, people with mental illness, diagnosed or not. For these people summer is difficult, and winter is almost impossible.
Some in our community want this problem “cleaned up,” they call it a “disgrace.” Barricades are built to protect investments while the underlying causes of poverty and the chronic lack of affordable and safe housing seem too expensive and take too long to build. Many say those people suffering from homelessness or precarious housing, just need to get a job. “How do you go for a job interview when you suffer from mental or physical limitations or live in a doorway in an alley?”
We keep walking; we emerge back where we started.
Keep looking.
An election sign. Fiscal conservatives promise cutbacks and balancing the books, downsizing government, and “doing more with less.” Politicians use simple slogans, five-second sound-bits, years of government’s “cutting the fat” or striving for “zero percent”, tax increases have left organizations and charities juggling very limited resources to patch the holes.
Governments of all levels shuffle the same money from one program to another as the problems increase in size and severity. Allowing for inflation is unheard of. Too many voters live in blissful ignorance of the social cost of failing to really address issues and/or working collaboratively with those organizations already trying to deal with these issues. It has taken decades of cuts and ignorance to get here and the cost of really fixing the problems is something nobody wants to see.
Support for charities is handicapped by the misplaced view of many donors that administrative costs are somehow a sign that the organization is mismanaged. Imagine a private sector business listed on the stock market penalized for spending money on its executives or infrastructure. Why are charities different?
This was a short walk, we are here now, now that we have seen a little, what can we do?
The sun is shining. Someone is playing with their dog. An expensive boat passes on its way out of the harbor.
Our problems are real and getting worse. People don’t see and don’t want to see. While our communities appear wealthy and many people seem to be enjoying an enviable high standard of living, an increasing number of us are not.
You are one person, it’s too big for you to solve. What can you do?
Becoming aware is the first step. Making more people aware is the next. Voting is a simple way to help, apathy has crept into many of the electorate; however, awareness and exercising our responsibility to vote will help because far too many of the fiscally conservative voters are skewing our elections. In the next election, learn about the issues vote, and take someone with you who hasn’t voted before WILL make a difference.
By building awareness we can tear down our biases and correct misunderstandings. We need to hold our leaders to make than just simple rhetoric and make them explain just how they are going to “Make us great again.”
Our democracy, just like our vulnerable needs us to learn, acknowledge, see, and not shirk our responsibility.
We need your help because my town is just like yours.
Paul.