By Jen Wilson
Homelessness prevention is the top priority of a new community action plan in Ottawa.
The plan is a continuation of two previous city initiatives that focused on increasing the number of spaces in Ottawa’s shelters.
The latest plan hopes to identify people at risk of losing their home due to poverty and provide social and financial services to help them keep their current homes.
Trudy Sutton is co-chairwoman of the Alliance to End Homelessness in Ottawa, a coalition of community groups and individuals who work on behalf of the homeless.
She says the city’s new plan needs to be broad-based in its solutions because there are so many reasons people end up on the streets.
“The community action plan looks at a whole range of services and housing that we need in the city. So it is quite broad-based, there is not just one solution. But it does focus on the preventive piece. Sometimes that can be someone knowing that they are going to be encountering difficulties and getting help soon enough. It might be like getting someone from an agency to negotiate an arrangement with a landlord on behalf of a tenant.”
Newly elected Ottawa Centre NDP MP Paul Dewar supports the new initiative, but says the public needs to throw away the “stereotypical” image of the middle-aged, alcohol-dependent homeless man. He says homelessness affects a broader range of people.
“There are challenges, financially speaking, that aren’t foreseen for people,” Dewar says. “If people are living on minimum wage, social assistance or below the poverty line and encounter financial difficulty, what we need to have is a place where they can go and get help.”
Russell Mawby, the city’s director of housing, says that homelessness affects people young and old and that if the plan is going to be a success, it will require the help of the community.
“Homelessness is a symptom of the failure of our housing and services system,” Mawby says. “What we’re trying to do is really consciously think of it as a system as opposed to a disconnecting set of services. And I think the title says it well, the community is really trying to get out of the homelessness business.”
Dewar agrees with Mawby that homelessness is often a result of Ottawa’s unaffordable housing market. With more than 10,500 people on the city’s waiting list for subsidized housing, Dewar says Ottawa needs to act immediately.
“What is absolutely critical is that we start building affordable housing and not be contingent on the province.
When you look at the fact that this is the capital of the country and we have the resources, it is absolutely reprehensible that we haven’t done anything about this.”
Mawby says that the primary restraint in providing more affordable housing in the city is financial. Though he says the city has made progress towards ending homelessness, he hopes the new program will be beneficial because it will target the problem in its early stages.
“Initially what we have done is build more shelters, but that is nuts. We will never be able to build enough shelters if we don’t deal with the problem,” Mawby says.
He adds that Ottawa has a long way to go before its streets will be clear of people calling them home. “To say that we have done an adequate job is wrong. We are miles away from where we should be.”