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Put Homelessness on Election Radar

By Ron Nurwisah, Boy Reporter

2006_10_26blueprint.jpgWhat have been the issues discussed in this year’s civic election? The island airport? Check. The Gardiner? Yep. Crime? Sadly yes, even though crime in this city is down. Stephen LeDrew’s bow tie? Uh huh. What day of the week it is? Yeah.
What about homelessness? Nope. As far as we can tell, homelessness hasn’t received much airtime from the major candidates. We’re hoping that the launch of the Wellesley Institute’s Blueprint to End Homelessness might spark a discussion, among mayoral and councillor wannabes.
As the report puts it homelessness is bad for people, bad for communities and bad for governents. Building good social housing helps people, strengthens communities and is actually cheaper than funding shelter beds. From a humanitarian perspective having thousands of people living on the streets in the middle of winter is unacceptable.
Read the report, ask questions about it at your next municipal debate and remember that homelessness isn’t just an issue at the municipal level. Send a postcard like this one to your MPP or your MP.

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  • http://www.benwendt.com Ben Wendt

    Housing was a big issue at Hart House on monday. It would be a shame if they didn’t report on the debate.
    I went to an all candidates meeting for ward 20 at the end of august, and they talked about housing there too.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/dstopping David Topping

    Also interesting to note, instead of referring to Kevin Clarke in their title for an article on the debate as “homeless” or “alternative” or whatever you want to call him, The Varsity called Clarke an “ex-con” – “Ex-Con Disrupts Mayoral Debate” or something like that.
    And that’s one big stigma that we have to get rid of.

  • MGV

    I looked at the study, but there’s far too little detail for the study to be believed. Honestly, is 10 pages sufficient to base a plan on?
    There’s no doubt that there is a chronic shortage of affordable housing in the GTA (not just Toronto), especially for the working low income members of the population.
    In order to meet the targets in the report there would have to be a major reworking of how social assistance in housing works.
    Sadly the biggest mistake has been the belief that rent controls benefit the lower end incomes, when in fact it’s the middle end. And in the end rent controls just reduced the available rental stock. The city’s planning cycle and NIMBYism will always put a damper on any initiatives to improve the housing stock.