Low vacancy, soaring rent hit homelessness
Shelters at more than 100 per cent capacity, second bi-annual count reveals
Plummeting vacancy rates and soaring rent costs for Niagara apartments appear to be driving up both the number of homeless people and the length of time that homeless people are forced to stay in shelters, the second count of homelessness in Niagara shows.
Two years after the first-ever point-in-time homelessness count in Niagara, the number of homeless appears to have climbed in the region.
In turn, shelters for those without a place to call home are bursting at the seams, information from the count suggests.
On the night of March 27, 87 volunteers and 75 community agency staff fanned out across much of Niagara, counting the number of homeless people in emergency and domestic violence refuge shelters, transitional housing programs, and in unsheltered locations such as under bridges.
The bi-annual Niagara count — now mandatory under provincial legislation — found 625 people were homeless on that March day, including 114 children aged from under one year old to age 15.
Overall, that’s substantially higher than the 2016 count, which found 465 homeless. While most age groups saw mostly stable homelessness rates, in the 31-49 year old age bracket the number of homeless doubled from 93 to 186 over those two years. Why, isn’t clear.
But what is clear is that shelters are struggling to handle demand.
In a new report presented Tuesday, the regional program evaluation and data adviser said the decline in rental vacancy rates and a dramatic increase in house prices in the spring of 2016 saw annual shelter occupancy rates — consistent at 85 per cent for years — surge to 98.2 per cent in 2016, 107.6 per cent in 2017 and 109.4 per cent in the first four months of 2018.
At the same time, the average length of stay in shelters has grown from 11 days in 2015 to 13 days in 2016 and 19 days in 2017.
Cathy Cousins, the Region’s director of homelessness services and community engagement, and Adrienne Jugley, commissioner of community services for the Region, said the lack of affordable housing is creating bottlenecks at those shelters, with people forced to stay longer and longer because of the lack of affordable housing and rental units.
Statistics show the vacancy rate in Niagara dropped from 2.8 per cent in 2015 to just 1.5 per cent last year, lower than Hamilton or London.
At the same time, rent costs have seen double digit growth.
“The affordability for people on social assistance is practically zero,” said Jugley.
“They can’t exit (shelters),” added Cousins.
“They can’t find a place they can afford. The housing market has become out of reach for most.”
The homelessness count is designed to help policy-makers better understand the root causes of homelessness, to better understand how programs can be tailored to chip away at the pervasive social problem. Niagara was one of 60 communities across the country taking part this year.
Cousins said the homeless count was only possible because of the selfless work of volunteers who had to undergo training and then head out for hours on a dark March night.
“It’s not a small commitment,” she said.
As part of this year’s count, more than 400 people at shelters answered a survey that’s providing new insight into who the homeless are and what’s led them to be homeless.
For instance, 36.8 per cent cited family breakdown as the top reason for being homeless, followed by financial problems/job loss (26.4 per cent), addiction or substance abuse (17.2 per cent), unsafe housing conditions (13.8 per cent) and 11.7 per cent (illness or medical condition).
The survey also showed homelessness is taxing the health care and law enforcement systems: in the last year, 219 homeless people had visited an emergency room 663 times in total, 125 people had spent 1,333 days in hospital in the previous three and a half years, 161 people had 628 interactions with police in the previous year, and 70 people had spent a total of 3,276 days in jail over almost nine years.
Almost four out of five respondents said their income was welfare and/or disability benefit, and almost 80 per cent said high rent was a challenge for finding housing.
A surprising find is that more than 61 per cent of homeless people have a high school or higher education, which flies in the face of some stereotypes.
“There’s a perception that people in shelters are high school dropouts,” said Cousins.
Another finding that shows the importance of efforts by the region and its partner agencies to target youth homelessness is that 36 per cent of survey respondents had first experienced homelessness before age 18.
The disruption of that at an important age can play havoc with people’s education and other life goals, said Cousins.
“It sets you up on a downward trajectory that’s very difficult to climb out of,” she said.
Jugley said that reinforces the importance of work underway to prevent youth homelessness, as does a survey finding that 57 per cent of respondents self-report a mental health issue reflect the need for the region to continue to work closely with mental health agencies.
The pressing need for more affordable housing — thousands of people in Niagara are on waiting lists that are often years long — is a no-brainer, given the new count’s findings on how low vacancy rates and high rent costs are preventing many people from getting out of homelessness.
But Jugley said the highly complex problem required a multipronged approach that continually evolves as the region learns more and more about who the homeless are and what the contributing causes of homelessness are. “It’s multiple strategies,” she said.
“The people we are serving have very complex needs; the survey reaffirms that.”
For instance, a housing allowance could allow people unable to find their way out of shelters to get over the humps holding them back from landing an apartment, said Jugley.
One new strategy is a pilot project by the region that’s designed to engage landlords to convince more of them to consider renting to people who may not have solid references or a stable renting history, with the promise of supports tenants may need and guarantees on rent payments.
The Region recently hired a firm with expertise in that to take the lead on the pilot.
“There’s a number of community minded landlords who want to do this, but they don’t want to go it alone,” said Jugley.