A Centretown drop-in centre is among several services for homeless youth across the city seeing a spike in usage.
Operation Come Home, at the corner of Gloucester and O’Connor streets, has seen more than double the visitors compared with last year, says Jamie Hammond, the centre’s communications officer.
Another drop-in centre at the corner of Besserer and Waller streets provided services to 1,000 young people in 2010, a 42-per-cent increase from 2008, according to the Youth Services Bureau.
“We are all aware that the economy has gone through difficult times,” says Eva Schacherl, the centre’s director of communications, “Although, in good or bad times, youth end up on the streets for various reasons.”
Many are driven to the streets because of domestic violence, being asked to leave home, or poverty, she says.
The drop-in centre helps young people access housing and addiction services and provides showers, laundry and free lunches every day.
The centre’s emergency shelter services have been operating at over 100-per-cent capacity for the last several years.
“We have 30 spots for young men and 30 for young women,” says Schacherl. “We also have an overflow space with a cot.”
Reliance on drop-in centres and shelters is partly due to limited affordable housing in the city, says Hammond of Operation Come Home. “The waiting lists are unreal. It can take five to eight years to get a subsidized apartment.”
Lynne Browne, co-ordinator for Ottawa’s Alliance to End Homelessness, blames the fixation on building condos downtown.
“We have seen an explosion of new downtown condos and there is not one unit of affordable housing in any of them.”
She says the problem is insufficient federal and provincial funding for affordable housing.
The Ontario government spent $64 per capita on affordable housing between 2005 and 2009, compared to the national average of $115, according to the Alliance to End Homelessness.
The average bachelor apartment costs $715 per month, and single rooms are rarely under $400, says Browne. “That doesn’t leave much left over for food so there is no choice but to go to drop-ins and food banks.”
“If these services didn’t exist, I’d be a twig,” says Miranda (who didn’t want her last name used), a resident of long-term housing for the last three years and currently unemployed.
When Miranda, now 21, was 17 years old, the Youth Services Bureau helped her move off the streets into stable housing.
She says the drop-in centre gives her a sense of belonging to a community.
“It’s essential to have places like this because you can’t just be alone,” says Miranda. “Places like this have become a home to me.”
This is one reason higher numbers at the drop-in centre could be a good thing, says Schacherl.
“Youth might come in to get lunch and use our showers, but once they are here, they see this as a safe place to get services,” she says. “They often don’t have a lot of trust in the system, so this might help them get support to deal with housing, employment or addiction.”
It is important to help young people transition to an independent lifestyle, says Sheldon Pollett, executive director of Choices for Youth, a Newfoundland-based group that works with homeless youth.
“I have rarely met a young person that doesn’t want a place to live and a decent standard of living. Many identify the need to go back to school,” says Pollett. “We need to tap into the motivation that is clearly there.”