A perfect storm: homelessness and no shelter beds

This summer growing numbers of my clients in Toronto have stayed in jail because there were not shelter beds. Even Seaton House has put in cots. In one of the richest cities in the world we are keeping people in jail before trial because we cannot provide them a bed in a warehouse as their address.

As the cost of rent in Toronto has skyrocketed, there are more than 140,000 people on Toronto Community Housing’s waitlist, and the number of homeless and deaths on the street keep rising. In the criminal justice system, an increasingly large numbers of my clients stay in jail.

Keeping people in pretrial custody is expensive and demoralizing. Most of those warehoused in pretrial detention are poor and marginalized. They live with different combinations of mental health issues and addictions.

This has increased the court backlogs because unrepresented mentally unwell accused try to negotiate a complicated system they do not understand. Growing numbers of detained people are also refusing to participate in the video links and other forms of court administrative processes.

Legal aid cuts have made a bad situation significantly worse. All this adds to the court delays.

The answer is not shelter beds. Shelters are often horrible warehouses that reinforce hopelessness. Regina’s success in a housing-first strategy has dramatically decreased homelessness, arrests, hospitalizations and pretrial detention. It has also saved Regina nearly $2 million.

Homelessness in Toronto is not caused by the lack of affordable housing. It is caused by a lack of money, specifically the lack of enough rent money in the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).

ODSP only supports individuals who cannot work because of disabilities. The program has two payments: the “basic” allowance, which is $649 a month, and the “shelter” allowance, which is capped at $479. The shelter allowance is dedicated solely to rent. All my clients are on ODSP.

The ODSP was enacted by the Harris government in 1997. At that time, it was about $450. Although the shelter allowance never completely covered the cost of rent, it was possible to rent a small apartment for $500.

Today you cannot rent a room anywhere in Toronto for $500, let alone any kind of self-contained housing. As a result, ODSP recipients who don’t live in subsidized public housing are forced to take significant amounts of money from the basic allowance to pay for market rent. As a result, many cannot pay for housing and buy food. It’s ironic that people with disabilities were better off under Mike Harris than under Kathleen Wynne.

An increasing number of people with disabilities are being evicted for not paying rent. When they are evicted, most have nowhere to go but the shelter system, which is horrible, unstable and full.

Poor people who are homeless are often unable to manage long-term health problems and disproportionately end up in hospital emergency rooms. People who are homeless are also more likely to be arrested for small thefts, fights, property damages and nuisance behaviours.

They are also less likely to show up for probation or attend scheduled court dates as they struggle to find housing and shelter. Therefore they disproportionally get arrested for breaches of court orders. Homelessness is hard on the individual and the community. It is also very expensive for Toronto and Ontario.

The obvious remedy is to increase the ODSP shelter allowance to cover the cost of a small apartment.

We are told that the cost of rent is a function of the market. There is widespread public support for benefits for people who cannot work because of disabilities. At a minimum this should include enough money to pay rent and buy food.

Instead, my clients are being warehoused in jails while their friends sleep and die on Toronto’s streets.