Ending Chronic Homelessness

[Acitta]

While there have always been a certain number of people who are chronically homeless and cannot handle living in normal society, the scale of homelessness these days is unprecedented across the country. There is a severe lack of affordable housing for people with low income. The amount of money for housing supplied by ODSP and Ontario Works is laughable. Once upon a time, someone could afford to get by on welfare. There used to be enough cheap rooms to rent. Even many of those with substance abuse problems could afford to have a roof over their head. This is a problem that has arisen because of decades of neglect by provincial governments. We cannot simply pretend that we can kick people out of encampments and they will simply disappear. Many countries in the global south have vast tracks of shantytowns built by people who have no other choice. This is our future if our governments don't take this seriously. Doug Ford allowing developers to build monster homes on the greenbelt is not going to solve the problem.

You're pretty much spot on about everything.

That said, how do we fix the housing issue? I think I had mentioned in a Reddit thread regarding an apartment being built in Waterloo for affordable housing. I calculated that the per unit cost was about $450,000. This confused me. Why are we paying so much for these builds? Where is the money being funnelled too? If we needed 30,000 affordability united in the region, the cost would be $14 billion. To house the homeless (chronic and/or living in rough) would likewise cost $500 million - just in this region.

We need to get to the bottom of why things are as expensive as they are though. Not even that long ago you could get a new small condo for less than $300G that would have had good interior design. A basic apartment unit should be a lot cheaper.

I know part of the issue is previous governments discouraged students from the trades, which is now bitting us in the ass. But apart from that, there is something bad going on - between politicians of all government levels, perhaps money laundering among other things. But we really need to see a full accounting and money trail. Who's profiting so much off of these builds?

Also, for clarification - those who have serious drug problems -- I don't recall a time where they have had a roof over their heads, unless they were in some sort of institution. I am not sure how old you are, but I recall this being an issue, and seeing it, when I went to Cameron Heights in the 1980's.  Some folks would live under the Stirling Street overpass between Mill and Courtland.

I am 69. Back in the '70s it was more possible to find a cheap room somewhere if you were together enough to work at some crappy minimum wage Joe job (There were more of those back then, too.) Like I said, there have always been those too addicted or mentally ill to manage stable housing, and the opioid crisis has certainly exacerbated that. However, back then welfare or unemployment insurance was enough to have a place to live, even if it was not a very good place. Now, even if you have a full time minimum wage job, you are hard-pressed to find a place to live and if you are disabled, ODSP is laughable. Before I turned 65, I only kept myself from becoming homeless because I had a lot of credit and was able to go heavily in debt.