A Family Despair

Families with children are the 'hidden homeless' in Toronto

By Jane Schmidt

Aaron and Deirdre and their three children were getting by until two years ago. Aaron earned a modest salary that barely covered their high rent and rapidly increasing costs of utilities, but when Deirdre went back to work, her minimum wage income was a help. Then Aaron lost his job. It was called downsizing. After six months of searching, he found work at half the hourly wage he used to make. It had long been the family’s dream to buy a modest house outside the city. Now it was stretching their resources to afford their small apartment. Their meagre savings were depleted. For the first time in their lives, Aaron and Deirdre went to the food bank to feed their children.

The ever widening gap between rich and poor is a harsh reality in Toronto. Low incomes and high rents are unrelenting stresses for many working families facing constant risk of economic collapse. The most recent Toronto Report Card on Housing and Homelessness, published in 2003, states that one-quarter of Toronto’s population live in poverty. Rents rose 31 percent between 1997 and 2002. The recent 25 cent increase in minimum wage does not come close to addressing the high cost of living. Currently, the number of two-parent families with children using shelters is three times higher than in 1990.

Behind the Shelter Door

Once in a shelter, there is no escaping crowded conditions of one and sometimes two families to a room. What is supposed to be a very temporary situation may stretch into many months because of the severe lack of decent affordable housing in Toronto.

Helen Haziprodromu, Manager of Housing Access and Support Service of Fred Victor Centre, explained, “If they want to leave [the shelter] quicker, the places that are going to have vacancies are places that have tons of turnover because of violence, not places [to raise] children.”

Shelters provide not only space but services and supports for families. On staff are counsellors who help families cope emotionally and plan for the next steps forward. Families often suffer strong feelings of shame and guilt. Meeting others in the same position helps alleviate the sense that it is solely their problem. Housing workers who have experience in navigating the tough housing market help the families find permanent accommodations.

Orianna, a mother of two very young children, had been to emergency three times in the last year. It was no longer possible to hide behind an explanation of clumsiness. Her husband, an executive, was drinking more and the physical abuse escalated. When he hit their four-year-old son, she could no longer accept the situation and left her large home. For four months she and her children had been cramped in one room in a shelter. It was noisy and uncomfortable but they were safe and getting counselling and support to find housing. She had to keep reminding herself that it was temporary.

Domestic violence and relationship break-up are among the leading causes of homelessness among families. In the case of the former, there is a high priority to find families housing. Still, there could be a wait anywhere from two months to two years before appropriate housing is secured.
The issue of gender inequality rears its ugly head in the case of single-mother-led families, whose presence is almost double that of two parent families using shelters. In the case of abuse, most often it is the woman and children who leave the home while the perpetrator remains. If the woman works, she often earns a lower salary and still has the primary responsibility for the children. Sometimes, the woman would rather not pursue child support to prevent contact with the abuser. It is a difficult choice for a woman when escaping violence often means inevitable poverty.

How Children Cope

You won’t see children sleeping on a grate in downtown Toronto but that does not mean that there are not homeless children. In 2002, 4,779 children stayed in Toronto shelters. In 2007, the situation is not better in a city where one in three children live in poverty.

Young children are resilient. Preschool children in shelters might have great fun because there are so many playmates. Some shelters, such as Wood Green Red Door, provide day care so that parents can take care of matters such as legal appointments, counselling and housing search.  Primary school children, fairly adaptable, have a harder time if they have had to change schools two or three times in a year. Older children who understand the gravity of the situation are most affected and often become withdrawn although they are more likely to continue in the same school.

Children are directly affected by the extent of their parent’s ability to cope. Illness, disabilities and addiction issues that parents may be experiencing require more supports for both parents and children.

Mo escaped from the war that killed his wife and severely wounded his child. His mother was spared but her health was frail especially after eight months in a refugee camp. Once Mo arrived in Canada with his disabled child and mother, it was a shock to find out his engineering degree did not qualify him for even an entry level job in his field. With no other resources and unable to work, Mo, his daughter and mother stayed with relatives. He was relieved not to have to go to a shelter, but after eight months with his relatives in close quarters, Mo and his family had to move into a shelter after all. Eventually, through community connections, he found a job as a janitor in an apartment building where he and his family now live in a basement unit and he is close to his mother and child in case of emergencies.

Refugee families and newcomers often rely on shelters when they first arrive in Toronto. Shelters are equipped to deal with the specific issues that refugees encounter and are well versed in accessing the available resources. Recently, there has been a decline in the number of refugee families using shelters. According to the Toronto Report Card on Housing and Homelessness, this is because the more restrictive federal immigration policies have resulted in fewer refugee families coming to Canada.

Social Housing Backlog

Living at the Pears Avenue housing project, a hotel converted into mixed permanent housing for individuals, is one family: a woman and her young son. They are lucky to be in safe, supportive, rent-geared-to-income housing with a positive community attitude in a great neighbourhood, but the pair live in a tiny bachelor apartment of just over 200 square feet. Even though they are in a priory position because a child is involved, they have been on the social housing waiting list for a larger space for four years. Kim Hinton, FSA Toronto tenant support coordinator for Pears, said, “They will wait for another four years before they will get a larger bachelor let alone a one or two bedroom apartment.”  Most of the more than 71,000 applicants on the waiting list can expect a minimum 10-year wait for affordable social housing.

All agencies dealing with homelessness agree on the following three things:

• There needs to be a spectrum of affordable housing: subsidized, rent geared to income, supportive and decent housing at reasonable rents. The housing should be mixed and integrated into the community to prevent ghettoization and stigma. Housing should include apartments with three and more bedrooms to accommodate families with several children or extended family members, such as a grandparent.
• Prevention of homelessness is key. More efforts should be put in place to prevent this devastating occurrence. (According to Karen Paquin of Jewish Family and Child Services of Greater Toronto, her agency spends as much as $2 million a year to prevent their vulnerable community members from losing their homes.)
• Once in stable, affordable and safe housing in strong communities, families cope well. Good permanent housing is the single most important factor in a family’s ability to thrive.

 

The three scenarios depicted in this story are fictional but they reflect real situations facing many families in Toronto.

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Features

A Family Despair

It Takes a Village

Lessons Learned

News & Views

It It Feels Like Family, It Is

On the Rise

Equality for Three Parents

Tipping the Scale Back

Departments

Who Cares What You Think

What's News at FSA Toronto

Cata-list

Links

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Catalyst Fall/Winter 06