It is an unsettling sight for Islanders travelling to the big city. Figures swaddled in tattered blankets and sleeping bags, curled up in a fetal position over the steam-emitting grates of the subway system. Pedestrians scurry past on their way to work with nary a glance cast downward, so common is that sight on the streets of Toronto that passersby have become inured to the tragedy those huddled figures represent.
Thank goodness such sights are not to be seen here on Manitoulin Island, or so we might be tempted to think. But those with a deeper understanding of poverty and the housing crisis here in the North recognize that homelessness is not limited to the hardened streets of the big city.
Homelessness in the North is largely an invisible crisis, masked from sight by the lack of heat emitting grates. The term “couch surfing” refers to the practice of finding temporary shelter from the bitter cold in the living rooms of friends, relatives or kind-hearted strangers. These are the lucky ones.
Empty houses, often abandoned due to mold or other dangerous environmental hazards within, become shelters from the cutting winds of winter. Desperate for heat, those squatting within attempt to create ad hoc heat sources, often leading to fires that destroy those very shelters. Tents erected in the back yards of family members whose homes are already filled past capacity provide succor to some while others migrate to larger centres in the North to create tent cities, much to the dismay of the few remaining businesspeople hanging on in deteriorating downtown cores.
At least one upscale haberdashery in nearby Sudbury has taken to keeping their front doors locked, opening only at the request of customers appearing at the door, provided they are suitably attired enough to indicate the means to purchase rather than fumble through the merchandise in a surreptitious attempt to steal warmth (and perhaps too often merchandise if left unattended).
These are not scenes from some dystopian Victorian past, or the shantytowns of the so-called Third World. These are not works of fiction or exaggerations plied by left wing ideologues to further some big government agenda. These are the realities faced every day by homeless individuals and even families in the North. These are scenes that exist, for all of their invisibility. They exist, out of sight, out of mind.
These are scenes taking place in one of the richest countries on the face of the Earth and they should have no place here.
Given the inherent invisibility of homelessness in the North, it is all too easy to pretend that such suffering doesn’t exist, or if it does that it is someone else’s problem. After all, we all have our own crosses to bear. If we can’t see it, how bad can it be? Isn’t this the government’s problem, isn’t this why we pay taxes?
Provincial governments are indeed responsible for dealing with issues such as the housing crisis where homes are becoming ever further out of reach of young families. It is the provincial government that should be tackling the homeless crisis. But instead, the provincial government plays another sleight of hand trick that exacerbates the problem—they palm the issue off on local governments by providing inadequate funding and resources.
The Manitoulin-Sudbury District Service Board (DSB) receives barely enough social housing funding to maintain the housing stock which it already has in place. It is a rare government indeed which offers up sufficient funding to enable DSB to build adequate supplies of housing for those locked out of the rental market—municipalities are left to treading water at best. Any attempt to meet those needs would fall upon the already beleaguered tax base of small rural communities.
The Association of Municipalities of Ontario quite rightly assert that municipalities should not be the ones shouldering this social burden and, along with DSBs, their associations and social agencies across the province, including those in the North where homelessness is largely invisible, are calling on the provincial government to end this travesty.
The Manitoulin Expositor joins those organizations in calling upon the Ford government to live up to its responsibilities and get its priorities straight. Homelessness impacts us all—whether we can see it or not. It impacts our communities in rising crime rates, in the hopelessness that fuels escape into drug addiction, in the ongoing crisis presented to business by labour shortages—it’s hard to hold down a job if you don’t have a safe place to sleep at night.
This crisis has gone on long enough. It is long past time to do something about it.
