Social agencies and advocates say rising interest rates and high inflation are pushing more Canadians into homelessness.
Chaz Smith, who was once homeless himself, said some of the clients of his BeTheChangeYYC street outreach group have been on waiting lists for affordable housing for more than five months.
He said with interest rates and inflation on the rise, it could make the rental market more difficult to enter.
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Food bank use across Canada hits all-time high, nearly 1.5 million visits in March: report
“My fear is that we’re going to see people defaulting in the rental market that’s already full and we’re going to see an increase in homelessness across Canada,” said Smith, who founded BeTheChangeYYC.
On an evening earlier this month in downtown Calgary, Smith and a group of volunteers drove carts full of bagged lunches, including meal replacements, vitamin powder and granola. They also distributed socks, emergency blankets, tarpaulins and tents as temperatures reached around -20 C that night.
Before they reached the end of the block, they were surrounded by a group of about 80 people waiting to get food and warmer clothes.
Smith and the other volunteers venture out several times a week to provide supplies for those in need.
“It is difficult when so many come at once. That’s pretty typical for us now,” Smith said as he greeted dozens of people, many he knew by name.
He also spoke to new clients, including one man from Edmonton and another from Winnipeg.
Smith said his group helped more than 17,000 last year and many of them are new to life on the streets.
“That’s the scary part,” he said. “I’ve talked to quite a few people who are new to homelessness and you know right away because they ask you, ‘where are the shelters?’ They haven’t heard of the housing list and so you ask them, ‘where are you from?’
Tim Richter, CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, said the homeless sector is in crisis and it’s only going to get worse.
“I think we’re facing a quadriplegic that’s driving a wave of new homelessness and making homelessness much worse for the people who are already there,” Richter said.
He said there is already an affordable housing shortage, but there are also the lingering effects of the pandemic, the higher cost of living and the opioid crisis.
“You have this perfect storm of terrible news that is driving people into homelessness and making homelessness, as it is, much more dangerous and deadly,” he said.
“Homelessness is a kind of slow-motion crisis.”
Food banks are also seeing an increase in need, especially in Alberta.
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The Hunger Count report, released nationally in October, showed Alberta has seen a 73 percent increase in food bank use since 2019 — the highest across the country.
“The increase in Alberta is really just a perfect storm of low wages, loss of wages, high housing prices, high prices for food and fuel and utilities and all of that coming together at a time when the world was kind of on top of collapsed. of us,” says Arianna Scott, CEO of Food Banks Alberta.
“It’s very similar across the country. Every province across the country you see is increasing and struggling.”
Michael Pasma, the interim president of the Calgary Food Bank, said the demand is unprecedented.
“We’re seeing a demand we haven’t seen before, so it’s stretching our resources, but we can feed as many people as come to our door,” Pasma said.
“The question is up. If you look at the same time last year, it will be about 30 percent higher.”
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He said the food bank aims to increase its output to almost 500 hampers a day with the busy Christmas season.
Inflation also has a dramatic effect on older people in Canada.
Laura Tamblyn Watts, the chief executive officer of CanAge, Canada’s national seniors advocacy organization, said dollars don’t stretch as far as they did and for the first time even middle-income seniors are facing poverty.
“Do I put my money on the heating bill or do I buy food and medication? What we see can be summed up with ‘heat or eat’. When people only have a few hundred dollars a month to manage … you don’t have a lot of choices,” said Tamblyn Watts.
“What this means is that middle income (earners) are feeling it harder than ever. (People with) lower incomes face dire circumstances, including the highest rate of homeless seniors we’ve ever had.”
© 2022 The Canadian Press
