As the number of young people using shelters in Ottawa continues to rise, a national coalition for youth homelessness called A Way Home will launch in the city at the end of October to find solutions to preventing, reducing and ultimately ending what many consider a growing emergency.
“We know that we have a homelessness crisis,” says Mike Bulthuis, the executive director of the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, one of the convening groups.
“And I think that sometimes we focus on ending homelessness for those who are chronically homeless and have been homeless for a long time, but we don’t want our young people to have to become chronically homeless before we respond to them.”
A Way Home draws on the experiences of communities throughout Canada and makes expertise available to those without existing frameworks to deal with youth homelessness.
In addition to A Way Home, Ottawa will soon see more being done to help those young people in need. Bulthuis explained the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa has received funding from the United Way to develop an Ottawa-specific plan to end youth homelessness. He says it will work with organizations such as Operation Come Home and the Youth Services Bureau to develop the strategy, which he expects to be implemented in a year or so.
“That’s going to take the entire community,” says Bulthuis. “Not just service providers, but it will take the involvement of our local business and political leaders . . . and neighbourhoods offering support to our young people, so we really hope that this launch is a real civic project around ending youth homelessness.”
Outgoing Ottawa Centre MP Paul Dewar says he supports projects on youth homelessness, as all young people deserve to be given the attention to become successful adults.
“At a time when young Canadians should be focusing on their education or getting a start in the workforce, too many are struggling to put a roof over their heads,” says Dewar, adding that homeless youth are then more likely to become homeless adults.
Moira Davis, an outreach worker with Ottawa Innercity Ministries, says many Ottawa residents are unaware of how prevalent youth homelessness is. She says most of Ottawa’s homeless youth are found in the downtown core.They become homeless after a conflict at home, which could be spurred by drug use, sexuality issues or mental health challenges.
According to Davis, Ottawa Inncercity Ministries has seen an increase in the number of young people using its services. She says that while it’s difficult to calculate an exact number of how many homeless youth there are in the city, national statistics estimate about 20 per cent of all those who are homeless are between the ages of 16 and 24, working out to approximately 1,000 homeless youth in Ottawa.
However, she explains that number doesn’t include those known as the “invisible homeless” – people who sleep on the streets, in a car, or couch surf instead of accessing a shelter.
Davis says she believes A Way Home will provide a strong support system for all of the different people involved in helping the homeless, including front-line workers, advocating agencies and the police.
“If you feel like you’re part of a team…and you have each other’s back, then I think you’re more likely to do effective work,” she says.
Davis adds that feeling overwhelmed by the problem of homelessness is often the reason everyday citizens feel apathetic towards those they see living on the streets. She says it’s important community members keep in mind everyone had a home at one time.
“This is not just a problem to be solved, these are people – real people,” says Davis. “When you start to get to know them, you start to understand this is a person, this is not just a problem to be fixed. This is a person who we need to support.”