Focus on homeless crisis risks forgetting poverty hidden behind closed doors, advocates say

Time, money and other resources funneled into helping solve London's homelessness crisis is excluding the deep poverty of those living in substandard housing, couch-surfing or sharing rentals to avoid living on the street, advocates say. 

"We're dealing with a crisis in London right now and we have a significant pool of money that can be used to help folks, but (city officials) are only using data from publicly funded shelters and crisis supports to identify those who need the help,' said Jacqui Thompson, the executive director of Life Spin, which helps low-income families. 

"Women are left out of the picture. Women with young children are not going to be on the street. You're not going to see them. They're in private shelters all over the city. They're couch surfing, they're renting a house for three families and the parents get the bedrooms and the kids are camped out in the living room. There are homeless people that you don't see." 

Thompson has written a letter to city politicians urging them to create solutions that address systemic issues that lead to homelessness, including for those families who are not counted by shelter and street outreach services. 

"There are more than 6,000 people on the waiting list for affordable housing. Only a tenth of that would be addressed by the allocation of the fundamental resources being used right now. Women are systematically being excluded from the opportunities to help house their families, and so are seniors. You're not going to see them in the shelter system." 

There are homeless people that you don't see- Jacqueline Thompson, LifeSpin.

City numbers indicate there are 6,142 households waiting for community housing, which includes rent-geared-to-income and social housing, as of April. 

Many have been on the wait list for years, and some aren't eligible — ironically — because of their precarious housing situation, said Jennifer Martino, the executive director of Crouch Neighbourhood Resource Centre, which helps people in the Hamilton Road area. 

"Many of these cases are invisible homelessness, for example somebody who is living in a garage. It's not suitable housing, it's not legal housing, but you won't find them in a tent in the park," Martino said. "There are people who get their mail delivered to Crouch because they don't have a stable enough address for really important documents, such as those that come from the Canada Revenue Agency." 

Heartbreaking stories

Crouch has seen a 66 per cent increase in people accessing services but has gotten no extra funding, she added. 

"We've also had a really significant increase in the number of newcomers that are accessing service here. I've heard a few stories from people where when they're trying to apply for things like their childcare benefit, they need to have proof of address, but they're informally housed by renting a room in somebody else's apartment, and none of the bills are in their name."

The Canada Child Benefit could lift them out of poverty or allow them to have enough money to rent their own place, but they can't access it because they can't prove where they live, Martino said. 

Neighbourhood resource centres and LifeSpin were invited to the recent talks that happened in the city between hospitals, city officials and groups that work with people who are homeless and mentally ill, a positive step, Martino said. 

"They really have started thinking more broadly about what it takes to find solutions to homelessness beyond the shelter system," she added. "We've also had really productive early conversations with city staff about some of the the ways that we may be able to play or a greater role in supporting these folks."

For Thompson, that work can't come soon enough. The focus on the opioid crisis, mental illness and addiction has pushed the needs of the people she works with further to the margins, she said. 

"It's heartbreaking when a mom comes to you and shows you pictures on her phone of the sleeping bags laid out in the living room where all the children were sleeping," Thompson said. "It's not hidden to us because people show it to us and say to us 'We need to have housing.'"

Workers sometimes have to tell people to go to a shelter and stay there for a time to get the housing support they need to get housing, she added. 

"The only way that you get counted as being an urgent need is if you go to a place where you're counted, but a lot of women with children don't want that. You don't want someone to know that you have six kids sleeping in one bedroom that may or may not be the same gender, because then there are other services that say that you're not allowed to do that and then they're risk their children."