Nation of homeless heading west
Policy-makers should acknowledge lure of Vancouver’s support network, say critics
Homeless people, it is said in Canada, do not migrate. If someone is sleeping rough in a doorway, they’re a local who fell through the cracks — not some out- of- town drifter who came in search of warmer weather and better soup kitchens.
“I think it’s an unfortunate myth that people come here because it’s nice outside,” said Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps.
Vancouver Coun. Kerry Jang, a psychiatrist who specializes in homeless issues, laughs at the suggestion. “How do they afford to come?” he said.
“Nobody’s born homeless and travels the country looking for a homeless bed; give me a break,” he said.
But, of course, homeless people migrate. They move for weather, for lifestyle and for better shelter. They have easy access to transportation and the online and social networks to know where to go.
No government wants to say that helping the homeless only invites a tide of new homeless, but in cities across Western Canada, that appears to be precisely the case. A nation of homeless is heading west, and until policymakers start acknowledging it, say critics, the situation is only going to get worse for the people with homes and the homeless alike.
In Saskatchewan this month, a North Battleford shelter that could not accommodate Jeremy Roy and Charles Curly bought them one-way bus tickets to Vancouver instead — at their request.
“Got to get out into the world and see new sights,” says Curly, adding that if he had to be homeless, he might as well be homeless near a beach.
Studies have identified clear patterns of homeless people migrating into cities ranging from Osaka, Japan to Sao Paulo, Brazil to New York City. In Vancouver, a recent study out of Simon Fraser University found that 52 per cent of the homeless in the Downtown Eastside had come from outside the city. Of those, many had already been homeless.
Homeless people know that Vancouver has better services, citizens who give to panhandlers and police officers who are accustomed to the unnerving tics that come with heroin addiction or untreated mental illness, says the study’s lead author.
“The word is out that there are certain places in Canada … where those behaviours will be more likely tolerated,” says the SFU study’s lead author Julian Somers, adding that it’s “not really that remarkable a finding” that homeless people are moving into Vancouver.
Given the sheer density of poverty, drug addiction and homelessness in the Downtown Eastside “it just doesn’t stand to reason that it is an entirely homegrown set of social and health challenges.”
At a shelter in Edmonton on a recent Sunday, the evening crowd filed in for dinner. “We’re all one family here,” says a bottle picker, gesturing to the surrounding city. “Why would I go to a place where I don’t know s--t?”
Doug Forman is a former carny who came by the mission to say hi to some old friends. He says he’s now in a good place in Edmonton with work and housing. But if the money dries up and he’s suddenly out on the street, Forman says he’s pulling up stakes and heading for the mountains.
The journey is pretty easy to make. It can cost as little as $75 to hop on the 20-hour Greyhound to the West Coast. That’s one-sixth of an income assistance cheque or about a day’s labour at a temp agency.
One woman says she’d recently seen a friend move west in search of work. An older man knew a couple who had headed to Vancouver but were turned back by B.C.’s welfare residency requirements.
With a wry glance at the falling snow outside, he says he could sympathize with anyone “trying to get the hell out of here.”
Back in Vancouver, Mayor Gregor Robertson is still trying to make good on a 2008 campaign promise to end homelessness by 2015. Fuelled by the “housing first” notion that homeless people first need to be paired with an address before they can kick drugs, he launched into an aggressive social housing building spree. The B.C. government alone has put up $143.3 million to rehabilitate a network of cheap, “single-room occupancy” hotels.
Despite this, the city’s homeless count has only shot up. Last year, 536 people were counted sleeping rough in Vancouver — almost double the 273 counted in 2014 — with some councillors expecting an even higher number for 2016.
“All the planning was based on the assumption that if you built enough housing everybody would go in and everything would be hunky dory,” says Jang.
“As it turns out … it ain’t that easy.”
Vancouver’s “end homelessness” strategy did briefly work. The middle-aged alcoholics who comprised most of the city’s street homeless in 2008 were all mostly housed within a few years.
But just as the homeless count dropped close to double digits in 2011, what Jang calls a “new generation” of homeless started flooding into the city. Coming from as far away as Ontario, these new multitudes are younger, drug addicted, aggressive and known for refusing help.
“It’s not the shuffling guy with his hand out; they’re getting angrier,” says Jang. “People are scarier. It’s taken on a very different public persona.”
South of the border, the U.S. West Coast is similarly coping with a disproportionately large homeless burden.
Somers found simply having hundreds of homeless people flooding westwards isn’t helping anybody.
His team followed 400 homeless people over a 10-year period and identified a clear pattern.
The (usually mentally ill) person settles into the Downtown Eastside and soon begins a steady routine of hospital admissions, clinic visits, arrests and court appearances.
Their health heads into a tailspin and soon, after racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in services, they die early.
“This is clearly not a positive story.”
It) just doesn’t stand to reason that it is an entirely home grown set of social and health challenges.
JULIAN SOMERS LEAD AUTHOR, SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY STUDY ON THE DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE