HOMELESSNESS- THE SILENT EPIDEMIC

If someone walked down one of Canada's bustling downtown streets they would see that population that many Canadians tend to forget about -- the homeless. The fact that we tend to sideline them like this is worrisome as without public will to do anything the politicians will do nothing. Now many people find the homeless population to be an issue worth leaving alone but this creates a double and even triple standard if there is such a thing.

Canada's homeless number around 250 000 people but with no national statistic as none of them have addressees they remain a shifty, migratory group of people.  This helps feed into stereotypes as a large proportion of homeless people in Canada's main cities ten to have an over representation of aboriginal people. For example in Vancouver alone aboriginal people make up 2% of their total population and 30% of their homeless population. Aboriginal people over represent in homeless populations in cities because as they try to leave the reserves in search of jobs or a better situation they enter the cities with many of the main causes of homelessness ready to work against them. Lack of education, mental health issues, poverty, addictions, etc. and this helps to further alienate them from main stream society causing them to be identified by their stereotypes and become invisible as their voices are robbed from them.

This ostracising from Canadian society does not just happen with aboriginals but all homeless people and I believe stems from the belief that they are somehow less than human just a thing that could not function in regular society, to lazy to get a job, crazy or addicted. While some things are true and some are not of these are not the point is we ignore the fact that they are human. As such I believe they deserve what is called the Housing First principle. The idea is that we house people first and then help deal with their socio-economic issues after. As it is incredibly difficult to get a job if you look unprofessional or if you do not have basic necessities such as an address or telephone number. I end with a video of  Ronald Davis a homeless man in Chicago who explains why thing like the Housing First Principle would be helpful:

Also you should check out where I found some of my statistics and see a site in Vancouver that operates on the housing first principle
http://www.stmichaelshospital.com/pdf/crich/homelessness-canadian-cities.pdf

http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episode/jungle-prescription.html