Aboriginals, youth overrepresented in York Region homeless population

YorkRegion.com
Oct. 7, 2016
Lisa Queen  

About 12 per cent of York Region’s homeless are Aboriginal residents, although they make up less than 1 per cent of the population, according to a new report.

“Aboriginal peoples are over-represented in homeless populations across the country and, as the data suggests, this is the case in York Region as well,” according to the report, Understanding the Numbers: Working Together to Prevent, Reduce and End Homelessness in York Region, a joint document from York Region and the United Way of Toronto and York Region.

“Research has shown that many personal issues facing Aboriginal peoples experiencing homelessness can be linked to various types of historical traumas.”

In addition to challenges experienced by the general homeless population, such as limited education and unemployment, First Nations residents may also face struggles such as transitions from reserves to urban living, systemic racism and landlord discrimination, the report said.

Pefferlaw’s Suzanne Smoke, a member of the Alderville First Nation and an advocate for missing and murdered Aboriginal women, agreed the root causes of homelessness of Aboriginal people are based on issues ranging from unemployment, low wages and lack of housing to colonization, racism, discrimination and cultural and geographic displacement of the reserve system.

We need to acknowledge the problems and address overlapping crises in education, health, housing, infrastructure and resources, she said.

“Government and Canadians need to take emergency action to address structural discrimination, especially the over-representation of Indigenous children in care, murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls and the over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples. And government and Canadians need to understand and emphasize the growing crisis of poverty and discriminatory treatment of Indigenous peoples,” she said.

“The historical introduction of foreign systems such as education, justice, health and child protection have left Aboriginal peoples in a cycle of economic dependency, including high rates of poverty and unemployment.”

The disproportionately high number of homeless Aboriginal residents is just one finding in the homeless report, which is finally putting numbers on a growing issue in York that has been discussed in recent years, but has had little data to substantiate it.

At the same time, the report isn’t a complete picture because there are many invisible homeless, including people who couch-surf where they can find a temporary bed, Cordelia Abankwa, the region’s general manager of social services, said.

“When people think of homelessness, they tend to think of street homelessness. And I think one of the things that we’re very fortunate with in York Region is that we have a real opportunity to prevent homelessness, to keep it from turning into the sort of on-the-street homelessness we see in other jurisdictions,” she said, adding it is almost impossible to reverse street homelessness once it reaches a critical point.

“When we started having conversations in a really serious way about homelessness, the focus was on prevention.”

The report’s data was pulled from the region’s first point-in-time count Jan. 20 and 21, which tallied the homeless found in shelters and on the streets, and from the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System, which collects and analyzes data on the use of emergency shelters in Canada.

“Our data reveals that in York Region, homelessness is caused by no single factor and exists across all demographics,” the report said.

“It is not an issue exclusive to a particular group or demographic and could happen to anyone. While homelessness in York Region is most often a one-time temporary situation, for some, it is a more chronic issue with individuals cycling in and out of homelessness or staying homeless for lengthy periods of time.”

Findings include:

• In 2015, 1,103 people used emergency shelters or transitional housing in York Region, although regional officials acknowledge demand may be higher as they are often at capacity;
• 12 per cent of people using emergency shelters are children aged 16 and under;
• More than three-quarters of people accessing homeless supports in York were born in Canada;
• Males and youth aged 16 to 24 are over-represented in the homeless population;
• Homelessness among veterans is 1.5 to 3.5 per cent;
• Lack of affordable housing and inadequate income are the top factors contributing to homelessness, followed by family/relationship breakdown or conflict, mental health challenges, substance abuse and domestic abuse.

“There is homelessness across Canada, including in York Region. There’s an estimated 230,000 people who are homeless across Canada. We have a population (in York Region) of 1.2 million and homelessness is about 1 per cent of our population,” Nancy Lennox, the region’s manager of homelessness community programs, said.

“We consider it a serious issue in our community as many across Canada do. We now have knowledge of data. That is what the whole idea of the report is, it gives us an opportunity to really focus our efforts, to look at how we alleviate…address and reduce homelessness in York Region before it becomes an even bigger issue.”