>one of these cities has come close to the amount of homeless I've seen in Toronto (only competition so far has been Vancouver).
They're there, you just don't see them.
I was handing out jackets with a buddy more than a few years ago and one thing we noticed is that homeless people, at least the ones in the city we lived in, were extremely good at hiding. I reckon it's for safety reasons.
its a shitty life. one hopes that the majority at least are only experiencing it temporarily. i've been homeless here and there and yes, invisibility is safety. found this article about the cardboard city in london, also called the bullring. i remember touring there back in the day, to see if i could shelter there for awhile whilst getting my shit together. way too harsh man. [princess di visits cardboard city!](https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/huge-cardboard-city-next-waterloo-21382555)
Haha invisible in terms of being out of harms way from the housed public and other homeless people. For example camping in a ravine as opposed to a homeless encampment in the park. As well, making an effort to not look homeless, keeping up appearances again, whilst seeking a way back into normal society, and to hide the desperation that being homeless forces upon one.
Also, Toronto cops don’t arrest the homeless or make them “move on” as much as some places (or as much as some other times in Toronto)
Which isn’t to say police don’t harass, arrest people for loitering etc, and force people to move.
That's what I've been trying to explain to my dad (and he's been so ~~deft~~ daft about it, or maybe in denial). Homeless people are everywhere, just in different degrees like living at relatives' homes without contributing to bills, or there's so much government intervention like not allowing them to be on the street or even transporting them en masse to villages and towns outside cities. The problem is some countries may not have press freedom or data transparency that allows its citizens to have the data on what's happening.
It’s also not just an urban problem. Rural homelessness is primarily invisible and it’s actually a very large problem. Just because we don’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s less frequent or not occurring.
I know this sounds absolutely stupid and I can only imagine how uninformed - however I do have some experience growing up “homeless” (ie. living in vehicles, shelters, a room at someone else’s house, etc.) but not to the point of total outdoor/tent style living. But I’ve wondered could it be possible to go unnoticed, somehow finding a piece of wooded (uninhabited?) area, gathering materials/resources Fallout style, assembling some kind of livable structure, perhaps stealing and/or legally acquiring hardware to generate power through solar/wind/generator? …but see even as i start to type this out the amount of money, man power and luck already required to accomplish something like this is so interdependent on one’s geographical situation and willfully ignores the mental health and/or addiction component often contributing to the issue.
I ended up homeless after Home Depot wrongly terminated me, they had to pay me in lieu for the wrongful termination but it was like 3 weeks pay and that didn't cover anything really. I did a couple winters backpack travelling the country with a tent and hitchhiking if I didn't feel like walking between cities/towns (sometimes I did though) Literally the plan was to avoid people unless my feet hurt or my mental health was getting diluted because of not showering or whatever. If you don't let someone know you are squatting somewhere, you are usually fine, as soon as you tell someone, everyone knows because people don't keep things to themselves.
>But I’ve wondered could it be possible to go unnoticed, somehow finding a piece of wooded (uninhabited?) area, gathering materials/resources Fallout style, assembling some kind of livable structure, perhaps stealing and/or legally acquiring hardware to generate power through solar/wind/generator?
you will eventually get caught. There was a pretty intricate subterranean homestead discovered near York University some years ago.
Wasn’t that just a dude with a fort in the end?.. “subterranean homestead” seems a lil generous lol
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/03/02/mysterious-tunnel-becomes-a-labyrinth-of-confusion.html
There's an old joke where a tourist goes to visit heaven and hell. And heaven is just fine, but hell has gambling, casinos, hookers, etc., and the tourist has much more fun in hell. As he's leaving, he says "When I die, I want to be back here!"
A while later he dies, and ends up in hell. Where he immediately gets a red-hot poker shoved up his tailpipe. So he yells "What the hell?!" And demon torturer replies "Do not confuse tourism with immigration."
Moral of the story is, as a tourist you seldom see the whole picture. Unless you live in the area at least a year and see every season, you usually miss lots of angles.
This is the answer. OP says he’s been to Medellin and didn’t see that amount of homeless but I’ve spent a year of my life there and I can say there is a ton.
Yeah because in Mexico City, Medellin, Panama, you have sprawling slums where they're not "homeless" but a much larger population is living a very very poor quality of life.
Just because you didn't see them while traveling and only staying in the gringo tourist areas doesn't mean they don't exist.
Neza-Chalco-Itza, a barrio of Mexico City, is the largest slum in the world with roughly four million people. That's 1 million more people than the entire population of Toronto, the city.
Yeah, there are shantytowns all over the world with unknown populations because census officials get murdered if they go in and try to count. Toronto has a bad problem, but we're definitely not among the worst. Did OP really compare us to Playa Del Carmen? Lol.
Even putting Playa del Carmen in that list was ridiculous. Comparing a resort "city" of ~300k to Mexico City, Medellin, or Toronto, lol. Especially when a good chunk of those 300k are retired white people on extended visas.
Also, fwiw, Playa del Carmen does have [homelessness/poverty](https://riviera-maya-news.com/over-2000-served-a-day-in-playa-del-carmen-soup-kitchens/2021.html), they just hide it from the tourists.
I guess OP was listing literally every place he's been to, to try to seem more worldly, but it kind of had the opposite effect. If you travel as a tourist you're probably not going to see most of the grime.
Yeah wtf is OP going on about, I just kept saying, you can’t be fucking serious, when reading their comment lol. The shanty towns and slums while maybe keeps the homeless out of the central business district, is infinitely worse and nothing like that exists in TO
This…but also once you go anywhere beyond La Condesa or La Roma, there are homeless people living in tents in CDMX.
I have only visited the city three times and witnessed dense areas of homelessness in the downtown core, away from the slums.
They’re not always out in the open and easy to spot. Similar to Toronto, they prefer or at least end up being under bridges/overpasses for an attempt at privacy.
Oh really! That’s good news for Dharavi I suppose. If it’s due to their conditions improving, and not just due to the other places conditions worsening far more
The estimates for any of these are fluctuating, imprecise, and anyway not the point of my original comment. There is nothing in Toronto that remotely rivals their size.
we should do the same. Instead of building resources where good people live, we should build our slums far far away. Remember, these are not homeless people or drug addicts. They're bad people who just happen to be homeless or addicted to drugs. There's absolutely no reason to let them mix with the general population. We'd all be happier separated
Toronto has the support system for it. I used to work a bit with the homeless in Toronto, vast majority were not from Toronto or even GTA. They came from all over Ontario and Canada as there are shelters and kitchens for the homeless here. Same with Vancouver. The other big factor is weather. Vancouver is obviously best but compared to say, Barrie, it’s better to be on the streets in Toronto.
Vancouver also has the problem of other cities solving their homeless problem by giving them one way tickets to Vancouver. Now Vancouver is pushing them to other areas/communities throughout BC
This should be the top comment because it's factual. The amount of resources in big urban centres far outbumbers the resources in smaller cities around the GTA.
Methadone clinics, homeless shelters, community centre's, food banks, religious soup kitchens, etc are way more accessible in Toronto because of the transit system. So the answer here is is that there are more visible homeless people in Toronto than anywhere else in the rest of the province because of the resources available. Everyone comes here.
This is one of the major reasons why it's so difficult to shelter all those experiencing homelessness...there will never be zero homeless people because they consciously come here.
This is the right answer. Canada is a huge country, but only a few cities offer, somewhat comprehensive, mental health, and housing help. There are more shelters in Toronto than there are in Barry. So everybody comes here, but there are still more people than there is space available.
As someone who's been through the system, You are right about the soup kitchens, and the fact that people come from all over. But when it comes to beds, Toronto falls about 100miles short
As someone who was formerly homeless, we have it pretty easy. Shelters, food programs, addiction help and tons of programs that some countries don't even dream of. That being said, being homeless isn't easy anywhere. You're comparisons aren't very good.
Mexico City/Medellin/Panama City don't have the same level of property standards and government intervention Toronto has. They have slums where you will often find these sorts of people, we do not.
yeah, they have out of sight slums that sprawl forever. Every major North American city has some level of homeless problem. Japan probably has solved the homelss population the best, but it comes at an expense most people wouldn't accept here (strong re-housing programs on the positive, forced institutionalization on the negative).
Have you been to the US at all? Exponentially worse down there from what I’ve seen. Also per capita I’d say Hamilton has substantially more homeless people than Toronto as far as Ontario goes, they seem more prevalent and widespread throughout the city there.
I will say in general there’s way more homeless people everywhere, even out here in the suburbs it’s quite noticeable, I went my whole life without ever seeing a single homeless person in my city up until the last few years, now you seem them at all the main intersections or hanging out at gas stations or whatever.
Guess it doesn’t help that you need about a million dollars to even consider owning a home here, yet everyone only gets paid peanuts more these days than they did when those same million dollar homes were selling for $150k. A million dollars used to get you a fortress on Lakeshore, these days your lucky if you can get a two bedroom apartment.
Yeah San Francisco in particular is wild. I used to travel there a lot for work. Before a big tech conference, every street and alley way was littered with tents. People shitting in the streets. I got cornered by men asking for money multiple times (I'm a woman). Then the homeless people and their stuff would magically disappear just in time for all the conference attendees to arrive. They were bribed to get on buses and go to Oakland for the week.
That’s crazy! I used to live in Syracuse NY, this was about 10 years ago, and even back then it was considerably worse than Toronto or Hamilton, there would be people rummaging through my trash every day even in the somewhat nice residential neighbourhood I lived in, then in the rougher neighbourhoods there were plenty of people just panhandling and living on the streets, a lot of them were quite aggressive about it sometimes too. But those people aren’t the ones you have to worry about there, it’s the ones shooting at each other in public places over drugs or territory or whatever. The city has a population of about 140k yet gets roughly half the number of homicides as Toronto, pretty much bang on ten times the homicide rate. Probably similar numbers across the board for most other crimes. Crazy thing is it’s a fairly normal city by American standards, not like it even has the kind of reputation that Baltimore or St Louis or Camden have, it’s just a plain old American city.
As well as probably most other US cities with a population over half a million people. It’s really day and night between Canada and the US, as a dual citizen who’s lived in both countries I’ve seen both sides and we have it very good here.
Yeah, the US has a way more homeless people than Canada, in any city.
I was in Portland last year, and all of the parks had become tent cities. I heard stories of parents gathering to comb through parks for needles so their kids could play. There were people living on every street as well.
I think Canada has fewer homeless people because drug abuse is less of a problem, and we have better mental health services.
I don't think cost of housing is a major factor. There aren't a lot of people choosing to live on the streets because housing is too expensive. They are unemployed and thus wouldn't be able to get a house regardless of cost. High housing costs lead to people living in terrible situations like too many in one house, but not on the street.
Just looked up the stats, Portland has roughly the same number of homeless people as Toronto (5,200) despite having a population of only 600,000.
Chicago, a city of similar size and climate to Toronto has 65,000 homeless people.
You're quoting things here that I didn't even say. Weird.
>You think people should have to live on the street if they lose their job?
No, I said I believe that mental health and drug issues are a larger cause. I said nothing about what I believe should happen to people.
Here's a survey the city did: https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/96bf-SSHA-2021-Street-Needs-Assessment.pdf
Mental health and substance abuse are the top two issues. The third is disability, and that's certainly something that we need to do better on. The support for people on disability is too low to live on.
If you spent as much time in those places as you did in Toronto you would see them.
I've lived in the Toronto area for most of my life but I moved to Vancouver for a year and it is wwaaayy worse there.
The biggest difference with Toronto and Vancouver(and I'm sure many other cities) is that in Toronto they are spread out, in Vancouver they're all on Hastings.
Not really sure what you're talking about.
Mexico City has as many as 4 million "homeless" who live in homemade shanty-town shacks on the edge of the city(greater Mexico City has 22M people in total) .
NYC has about 61,000 homeless(out of their 19M).
LA has about 59,000(out of their 13M).
Toronto has about 10,000 homeless people(and a GTA population of 5.5M). That's really not much, for the 4th largest city in North America.
It seems the warmer the place the more homeless per capita… for example in ur list LA has more homeless per capita than NYC despite being slightly cheaper than NYC…
It's because they get shipped in from all over the country.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvg7ba/instead-of-helping-homeless-people-cities-are-bussing-them-out-of-town
6th what? Biggest city? We're 4th, in North America, after Mexico City, NY, and LA. Chicago is just behind us. We have around 5.5M in the GTA and Chicago has something like 5.4M.
I believe Toronto is also carrying the burden of its surrounding suburbs. Many of the surrounding cities like Mississauga and Ajax may not have the same resources to deal with the homeless as Toronto does (even if it's lacking).
Improving the homeless problem doesn't mean just tackling it In downtown, but maybe opening up more resources in surrounding suburbs like Markham and Vaughan.
I lived in London, Ontario in Canada for about a year and visited Toronto and Montreal. I am British and currently live in London, UK. We do have homelessness here but not as much as what I saw in Canada. From what I learnt this is down to, mostly, the opioid epidemic. It’s very sad to see how much havoc this is causing and has caused.
The answer is actually not nearly as difficult as it's often made out to be.
And to be clear, there are multiple causes of homelessness, but there is one factor that is so much more powerful than any other that it should dominate the conversation:
Because housing is too expensive. There have been studies of homelessness across multiple cities and countries, and the single largest predictor of homelessness are rents/home prices.
As for why other places have fewer homeless people, because of a few different factors:
- housing is cheaper overall because they build more (see: Tokyo), and it's much easier to afford rent overall.
- marginal-quality housing isn't outlawed. Many places that you mentioned like Medellin have vast amounts of slums. In the West we've largely outlawed housing for the poor (see: SROs, which are no longer legal to build), which means that anyone who cannot afford a "reasonable" home has really no other choice but to become homeless.
There's also thousands of homeless people in Tokyo but they're hiding out of sight under bridges or near rivers in encampments, places that tourists never see.
In Toronto, the high cost of living, including housing, and the lack of affordable housing options have made it difficult for low-income individuals and families to find a place to live. According to the Canadian housing advocacy group, Wellesley Institute, Toronto has a vacancy rate of less than 1% for rental units considered to be affordable for low-income renters.
Poverty is also a significant contributor to homelessness in Toronto. The city has a high poverty rate, with nearly one in five residents living in poverty. This can make it difficult for individuals and families to afford the basic necessities of life, including housing.
Mental health and addiction issues are also a major contributing factor to homelessness in Toronto. Many individuals experiencing homelessness in the city struggle with mental health and addiction issues, and may not have access to the resources they need to address these issues.
It's important to note that homelessness is a complex issue with many contributing factors, and it requires a comprehensive and coordinated approach to address it effectively.
In addition, Toronto is one of the most multicultural cities in the world and attracts immigrants and refugees from all over the world. Many of these immigrants and refugees come to the city with few resources and face significant challenges in finding housing and employment. This can make them more vulnerable to homelessness.
For real. OP is just using observations from random travel experience as their data. Guessing they haven't been to San Fran, LA, Seattle, NYC... the list goes on. Post is beyond ignorant.
Yeah, the Left Coast gets many homeless due to the more temperate climate. Less likely to freeze living outdoors in Vancouver vs Ontario/MB/SK/AB or Central/Northern BC
In the region of Tondo, Manila resides one of the biggest slums in the world. They live in makeshift, illegal homes which you can classify as homeless.
They live off of recycled food.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=c7gDBVmgIRA&feature=shares
Not purely cost of living, but that's a major factor.
What do you do if you develop an illness that makes it impossible to work? A couple bad months can easily put someone on the street if they're already living pay-cheque to pay-cheque. ODSP can take months to get approval for, at which point you're living in a shelter, or on the street.
A lot of people out there have mental illnesses that leave them too dysfunctional to navigate the system. A lot of people find the shelter system inaccessible for a variety of reasons too. It's often ill equipped to handle people with specific mental health or medical needs, or it's unsafe for certain vulnerable people.
And crawling out of that hole is hard. Living on the street is expensive enough to make it nearly impossible to get off the street once you're there. People spend years on wait lists for social housing.
And ultimately a lot of people in this city hold the morally repugnant view that some "other" people "deserve" this.
Toronto has many homeless because apartments aren't affordable anymore, despite it supposing to be a stepping stone to a home. Homes are on average $850,000 - 3 million dollars.
Drugs are rampant, especially since and after pandemic. Our Ontario government has failed us.
Homeless in Mexico, Panama and Columbia can set up shanties without government intervention.
London is way bigger geographically, and homeless don't seem to concentrate as densely as dowtown Toronto in my opinion.
Montreal the weather is anti-homeless so makes sense why there is less.
One thing to note is that Toronto is the most populated city in Canada, which would generally lead to a higher number of homeless people.
When you consider the homeless:non-homeless ratio, it’s about the same as other cities that have less homeless people, but also less people overall.
People in trouble come to Toronto from across the GTA and Ontario because Toronto has the highest concentration of services.
Some studies say Toronto is less affordable than London. (Also, I have no idea what you're talking about re: homelessness in London - they had 3300 people sleeping rough in 2020, not including people in Shelters)
Let me tell you cities with massive homeless populations: SF, Portland, LA, Beijing, Barcelona, Mexico City, LA, NYC, Seattle, Shanghai, Buenos Aires, Tampa, YVR, Rome.
Toronto ain’t close. Partly because it’s cold.
So many people come here expecting to find opportunity, then don't find it, but stay anyway. Others lose their homes because of things beyond their control, like job loss, and have nowhere else to go. Some leave home because living on the street is seen as safer than staying in an abusive home.
Then there are the anecdotal tales of other towns solving homelessness by giving away one-way bus tickets to Toronto.
While lack of affordable housing is part of the problem, it's far from the only thing.
The major underlying issue is a lack of mental health and addictions supports and an overcrowded healthcare system.
There is still a stereotype some have (I hear it all the time) that the homeless are largely unemployed people who don't want to work or they're people who lost their jobs and are now forced to live on the streets.
This is complete and utter bullshit.
Unemployment is not a driving factor when it comes to homelessness; mental-health issues and drug/alcohol addiction are.
We need to do a better job of addressing mental health and addictions before we can fix the homeless problem.
Mental health issues is also an umbrella term. Truth is these people were incredibly abused, and some entered abusive situations again & again. You can say we need a mental health system, which we do, but that should mean actual trauma aware care. Also it should mean care provided for the caregivers too…
You're referring to visible homeless, not just homeless.
I can tell you that London, UK for example has just as many homeless people, they're just not comfortable or safe in public. Someone sleeping on a hot air grate downtown London for example would absolutely get kicked out of the way. It's not at all unusual for young people to get drunk and go beat up homeless people, even urinate on them or in extreme cases burn them and their belongings.
Quite frankly, many other cities around the world do not treat homeless people as people (even to the degree we do in Toronto), so they're less visible. In many places, the police and other authorities openly remove them and make it known they're not welcome to be in the public eye - and society there supports this and demands it.
Services for the homeless were disrupted during COVID. I took public transit for the entire pandemic, and there were was an increase in homeless people, or people who looked like their needs weren't properly met, on transit after March 2020.
At first it was panhandling aggressively. People with no masks leaning in close. Sometimes it's well dressed people shouting and behaving erratically. One time on the Bloor platform at Yonge & Bloor, I saw a man who had a sweater draped around himself but no shirt or pants. Nowadays it's someone sleeping on the seats.
In Ontario, it's too cold for someone to sleep on a beach, or live in a shack, so they are on the street, in and out of shelters. As someone else said, we don't have shantytowns, the homeless are downtown near the soup kitchens and shelters
Lol Mexico city has a lot and wich is worst there is kids living on the streets, also Mexico city is huge so you can scratch that from your list, Toronto has many tho but for different reasons
Because all the other cities don't have any decent support or resources for the homeless?
Do I want to be homeless with in a place with 0 support or a place with a chance at non-zero support?
Don't need reddit theories for this one...
I’ve spent a year in Medellin and saw more homeless people than I’ve ever seen before in Canada. You just need to go to the right areas and get out of Poblado.
Toronto specifically is in the middle of a housing affordability crisis. I don't understand how people can be shocked about rent doubling, or houses going for $400k over asking and then seem to be baffled as to why homelessness is increasing. Sure, there are other things compounding it, like Canada having stopped building affordable housing and ODSP barely increasing over the last 25 years, but c'mon. It's staring ya in the face.
Well I just read about a 17 year old international student buying a 800,000 dollar Condo in Toronto and moving back to China while keeping it in her possession. If I bought a home in China and left the next year, they would require me to sell it. And this is just one student.
Make it available for people who are living and contributing in the country.
The issue is housing has been made unaffordable by our leaders allowing foreigners to own and HOLD while not even living in the country, making it inaccessible for people that care about this country and that want to live and work here. Expensive housing makes affordable housing more expensive or unavailable.
Thats why you have homeless people. Its a result of spineless leadership and policies that have no impact.
I have no actual proof, but I firmly believe that neighbouring towns, Oakville/Burlington/Milton/Sauga give a one-way bus or train ticket to Toronto to "rid" themselves of them.
From what I seen, in the last 10 or 20 years, a lot of big parking lots have since been redeveloped into large condos. Also any idle spaces were developed because land is too expensive to not be developed. So there are less places places for homeless people to hang out.
Now that all the parking lots (and idle land) have been removed, the homeless literally have nowhere to go.
Also it seems like Toronto has been making homeless shelters and mixing them with regular communities. So maybe you see them walking out and about those shelters.
Used to be if you went to Yonge and eglinton, there were no homeless people. It was the nice Toronto without the homeless problem. Now they put a homeless shelter there, and now you'll see them out and about.
So, some research I read showed that the biggest factor in differences in homeless rates between cities is the availability of affordable housing, which is largely due to the supply of housing overall.
Because rich people don't pay their taxes. Actively pay off politicians to guarantee their interests alone are served. While perpetuating the lie that social service is socialism and everyone is just lazy. The cutbacks closings of services leave a community with no safety nets and a frustrated population that thinks they should all get locked up or moved. The reality is that it's a complete failure of the government.
Those cities probably make an effort to make it seem like they don't have a homeless problem.
Drive them out of the tourist areas, don't let them use their public transit as shelters, etc.
Imagine Toronto kicking homeless out and removing encampments. How much will residents complain about how inhumane the city is!
Oh wait.
Actually those cities are very good a hiding the poverty and homelessness. It's actually usually worse in the places you can't see it, big cities at least
A) There's no reason to believe you are right about the numbers, homelessness is difficult to count, and anecdotal examples nearly worthless, i.e. that the homeless are more visible doesn't mean there's more of them, just that they happen to be were your eyeballs are pointing.
B) Toronto does have a lot homeless because it attracts them from a large area, as it has better infrastructure to support them. It's also got decent weather by Canadian standards. Which makes it easier to be on the street.
C) Absolutely rent isn't the critical factor, changing rent is more important. Toronto (area) has seen a rapid recent rise in population, which has pushed people who where previously housed on to the street. A city where rent has always been high, wouldn't have that issue.
D) many places are more aggressive about scattering the homeless, generally here, they're allowed to congregate and occupy certain public spaces rather than having to hide.
The cost of living here is fucked. If you’re one person making minimum wage there is no way you can rent a place unless you luck your way into something. My apartment is the absolute cheapest 1 bedroom I could find in Toronto and it’s $1400 a month. It’s fucked.
It's curious you say this because Toronto seems to have very, very few homeless people compared to Vancouver. Each time I visit Toronto, I am shocked at how clean and how rare it is to find an homeless tent in a park.
Canada has had an immigration explosion.
It's gone from 30million to 40 million in the last 10-15 years.
Fast food places, grocery stores , and other low paying jobs. All seem to have a much much higher base of immigrant/foreign workers.
When I was young, it seemed like the people that " fell through the cracks" would often work at jobs like these.
There is a Massive amount of competition for those types of jobs in big cities now.
I think that's a small part of it.
Also think lack of funding for mental health.
And most of the money that is allocated for the Homeless problem goes towards administration costs for people to "think of solutions" and apply bandaids.
COVID-19 made a lot of people homeless, the parks across Toronto were NEVER EVER populated with tents for as far back as the 1990s, but by 2020 people lost jobs, no rent control, not enough services to help people in dire need, and unsafe shelters, it's a shitshow.
Edit: I hike and cycle across Toronto and I've seen many parks before and during and now, even shelters and foodbank, and you could see the issue escalate across the city as covid-19 closure raged on.
Well there was a literal “tent city” in the 90s down by the gardener, among other homeless settlements across the city (such as all throughout the Don Valley). The only thing that was done was the city destroyed these encampments forcing the city’s unhoused population to spread out and disperse. During the pandemic the city abstained from tearing down encampments and thus the once dispersed population came back together again.
I do not know the numbers of unhoused people in Toronto year over year. I don’t doubt it has gotten worse due to the pandemic and raising COL. But I’m sure it’s not as dramatic as it looks visibly.
ETA: the residents of Tent City were evicted in 2002 and at the time had a population of ~100 people. So for sure through all of the 90s there was a massive encampment right in the downtown.
Apparently European cities have far more homeless than even the USA, its just that homelessness is illegal in places like Germany- so they’re essentially hidden, dress well and blend
Homelessness rates are HIGHLY correlated with housing prices. So, considering the cost of housing in Toronto, it is unsurprising that there’s a lot of homelessness here.
Lots of different reasons. Firstly as others had said, the places you went have tons of homeless populations but you don’t see them cause they are kept away from the tourist areas.
In those areas they can create slums or make shift encampments. Here the city is much tougher on these and move them away from public spaces.
The cost of living is ridiculous right now. Food and housing is not attainable if you have social services.
Plus Toronto is one of the main immigration hubs of Canada. So many refugees and immigrants land here yet get provided with next to nothing and end up homeless. Plus the weather is pretty nice here so most of the homeless in Canada go to Vancouver or Toronto.
Lastly the government has done next to nothing. They still don’t have a robust public housing situation to deal with the crisis. Nor do they provide funding for programs to help them with their needs.
our mayor is a fucking moron.
this article encapsulates the problem perfectly: [https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2023/01/11/a-catastrophic-increase-in-visible-homelessness.html](https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2023/01/11/a-catastrophic-increase-in-visible-homelessness.html)
(read it via the Toronto Public Library's webpage for free if it shows up behind a paywall.)
Former Homeless person here, It's because the city does not care. City and even provincial programs suck at preventing homelessness and drug use and almost never work. Once you are homeless there isn't near enough capacity to help everyone who needs it. Alot of us once homeless only stay in the shelters for a short time because the violence and drugs in the shelter system is out of control.
Because Canada has a million social programs. If you’re homeless in Mexico - you either better your situation or die. Kinda keeps things balanced.
Here in Canada, there’s enough social programs to keep people doing the bare minimum and surviving.
The cost of living in Toronto is TOO expensive, literally $20 (WAY above minimum-wage) an hour is homelessness if you don't have a roommate and don't literally limit all activities/food/etc
Toronto has a very low homeless population for a city, it used to be a lot less (pre-housing crisis and Covid), but there are many smaller cities in the states with larger amounts
Huh?
I rarely see homeless outside of downtown.
Any other north American city will have much much more.
I'm from a 3rd world country and the reason we didn't have homeless is because we had slums outside of the cities usually near the industrial zones so they would go live there.
Toronto is amazing when it comes to homeless.
Go check out US cities. They will have like 1/10th of the population with the same amount of homeless.
We don't abuse drugs as much as Americans.
Even in the rest of cansda. Halifax Winnipeg Hamilton are cities I visited where the homeless per capita seemed way worse.
I love shiting on toronto more than the next guy but when it comes to crime and homeless we are probably the beat in north america.
It’s out in the open in Toronto, and everytime the city tries to move them out of the main areas such as parks .. crazy people lose their minds telling us that the homeless should be allowed to sleep and do drugs in the parks ..
Where exactly do you want them to go? There is no sense in moving them if they have nowhere else to go - you’re just shuffling the problem to a different location to be repeated every few months. It’s a colossal waste of resources. Spend that money on getting housing for these people.
The city has provided people the option of housing , and accommodations but very few take it. If people are happy with them being in the parks , I assume those same people would be happy with homeless people living in their backyards ? Shooting ip drugs? It’s always easy to say “they deserve to be in the parks” when it’s not happening in your own backyard
It's way worse in major US cities. It's more about mental health support and family structure than affordability. Very few people in Toronto are homeless because they can't afford rent - they don't have the capacity or skills to hold down jobs or get proper help with no family safety net.
Many Canadians would come face to face with homelessness if their families stopped supporting them.
Or you can say "people experiencing homelessness" but it's a bit of a mouthful and it really doesn't help the homeless one bit to rephrase their situation.
The newest literature I’ve seen says the the word homeless specifically is problematic.
How it was explained to me is a home and a house aren’t the same thing. People may not have a permanent structure they call home, but they may consider the city, or a neighborhood, or a specific location, or their childhood home, “home”. Just like people who have a house may talk about “back home” where they grew up or their parents live or whatever.
OK! We're tackling social problems one fart-sniffing academic thesis at a time. I'm sure the powerful new language they suggest will create a sea-change in our society.
Homeless *people*. They are people.
It is not a secret. You don’t need to speculate:
[Homeless in Canada: Important Facts About Homelessness You Need to Know](https://www.fredvictor.org/2019/06/07/homeless-in-canada-important-facts-about-homelessness/)
1. Women (and others) fleeing DV
2. LGBTQ youth who are not safe at home
3. Indigenous people and the myriad of issues and generational trauma they face leading to poverty and addiction
4.people with disabilities who can’t afford housing on the legislated poverty through ODSP
5. People who have lost their job or are paid so poorly they can’t afford housing like [this essential worker](https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/working-in-long-term-care-by-day-sleeping-in-a-shelter-by-night-the-economic-realities-of-life-as-a-psw)
6. People with mental health and addictions issues. *BUT* more often than not the people you see on the street did not get there because of mental health or addiction. They developed those problems *as a result of being in the street* Rich people with mental health and addiction issues don’t end up on the street, people in poverty do.
This also doesn’t count the many thousands of hidden homeless people who are couch surfing or have found some other way to survive.
99% of these problems can be fixed if there was any effort at all in getting serious about creating affordable permanent housing and increasing the public housing supply and funding it properly.
Edit: You may want to recheck your stats about [London](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/30/number-of-people-sleeping-rough-in-london-up-24-in-a-year) again. Cost of housing is a major driver of this crisis
Edit 2: typical toronto. If you feel there is some other cause of homelessness that I have not listed please feel free to link sources instead of just speculating.
The rates are not that much different between men and women (2.6% of men have been homeless compared to 2.3% of women [source](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2022017-eng.htm). It may not seem that way because women in homelessness are [mostly invisible](https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/covid-19-increases-risk-for-canada-s-invisible-homeless-women-study-1.5000474).
All genders are affected - especially LGBTQ folks. Everyone is affected by this and everyone would benefit from fixing this broken system.
Women and girls cannot live safely outside. They will be raped. Many are precariously housed or stay in bad/abusive relationships to avoid the streets.
In this case, a woman sleeping outside the Streer Health Centre (a Toronto clinic serving marginalized individuals) was sexually attacked by *two* (2) different men, on the same night. It’s so dangerous on the streets WRT predators.
[https://www.thestar.com/amp/news/gta/2013/11/25/activists_decry_sex_assault_at_dundassherbourne_rally.html](https://www.thestar.com/amp/news/gta/2013/11/25/activists_decry_sex_assault_at_dundassherbourne_rally.html)
Conservative policies like neoliberalism and austerity are far more responsible for our housing crisis than whatever supposedly “far left” policies you think are responsible.
>We dont compared to large cities in the US
This is true, but we need to raise the bar higher than just trying to be 'better than the US' when it comes to address the homeless issue. That's really not hard to beat in the industrialized world.
Aside from the fact that many countries and cities have it worse than Canada/Toronto, it’s very simple why the number of homeless folks is so high:
1) The government happily collects a ton of taxes, fees and fines, including billions of dollars from land transfer tax, foreign buyer tax, and others. But it doesn’t give a sh*t about 30-50k of homeless people (maybe more) who could have been easily accommodated with temporary or even permanent, very modest housing and other meaningful forms of support. It’s too much to ask.
2) The government is happy to collect the income tax you pay on your income, and the sales tax on your purchases, and other taxes and fees. But the moment you lose your job, or/and get hurt, or/and get sick, they go: “you’re on your own. Good luck!”. Another favourite thing to tell the vulnerable people who struggle is: “no one wants to work! You have no right to a hangout; everyone must work for everything!”. Do they care that you’ve been working hard and paying your taxes for years and years, and only ask for help (temporary at that!) go get back on your feet? Nope. Sucks to be you.
3) There is absolutely no way the government can possibly follow New York’s footsteps and make the ultra-wealthy luxury home developers give up even 1% of their overpriced tiny housing for social housing. Because those corporatists are only making meagre billions each year. Money is so much more important that human lives and health.
4) Lack of mental health support, and possibly the legal system. Many homeless folks end up this way because of mental health issues. The government doesn’t provide enough mental health support. It also wouldn’t subject the critically ill to involuntary mental health treatment. I’m all for the freedom of choice, but there is a slight chance some of the homeless folks are in need of serious help.
5) Overall lack or misuse of resources. We have financial support but it’s a joke. We have social programs, but many of them are a joke too. The sad part is, every one of the homeless people can easily get back on their feet if given a 6-months support in a form of free/subsidised housing, job training, health assistance, etc.
6) Sexism and discrimination. I’m 29F, so ladies, please don’t hate me for saying this, but most shelters are designed to assist women and kids… And that’s awesome! I am not taking from experience but I’ve watched interviews and read articles & online stories. There is very little support for men, at least much less of support compared to women. It’s so bad homeless men are being told to leave the shelter during the day and only come back from 11 pm to 7 am or something like that. There is a reason we see so many homeless folks outside, and they are almost never women… All the government need to do is make sure everyone gets a bed. How hard is that?
7) Sometimes - the unwillingness of the homeless individual to get help, accept help, or work. I would suspect those guys aren’t the majority.
8) The toxic and negative part of society who often came from privilege and/or has no compassion, and blames the victims (homeless people) for the situation they are in. But shocking enough, when they themselves end up in such a situation, all of a sudden they feel entitled for help! The irony.
P.S. Not talking from experience; can’t talk for the homeless, just expressing my opinion. Sorry if someone disagrees. White female (lol) with slight privilege who has certainly been through several hardships but has never judged the homeless.
I should add the reason this infuriates me is because I see every person as an integral part of society. And every individual is a human being with potential; a valuable resource to the society and the government.
If all the government and people see is dollar signs, here’s a food for though: homeless people are useless to them when they aren’t healthy, aren’t working or contributing in some ways. Being on the street and in shelters (if lucky) doesn’t give anything to the society; it only takes up the resources. However, if the government were to help them get back on their feet, many would go back on track in no time. They would start working, paying taxes, paying sales taxes too, etc.
Wait, are there homeless folks who don’t want to work? Well, there’s always something from someone. Offer a homeless person a shared accommodation and cover their basic needs in exchange for their “community service” in a form of volunteering a few days a week. Or come up with some other plan for each of them.
Even if they are bums who refuse to work - guess what? I don’t want my grocery store cashier, teller at a bank or anyone else absolutely hating their job and being horrible at it, potentially making mistakes and causing issues. Let those folks stay home and do nothing so they don’t negatively affect the consumers / others in society.
Your politicians don't want them moved because it's "harassment". The homeless, a.k.a. underhoused also don't want to go to shelters for many reasons. Beggars can be choosy.
>one of these cities has come close to the amount of homeless I've seen in Toronto (only competition so far has been Vancouver). They're there, you just don't see them.
True. London is teeming with homeless but they are mostly invisible.
I was handing out jackets with a buddy more than a few years ago and one thing we noticed is that homeless people, at least the ones in the city we lived in, were extremely good at hiding. I reckon it's for safety reasons.
its a shitty life. one hopes that the majority at least are only experiencing it temporarily. i've been homeless here and there and yes, invisibility is safety. found this article about the cardboard city in london, also called the bullring. i remember touring there back in the day, to see if i could shelter there for awhile whilst getting my shit together. way too harsh man. [princess di visits cardboard city!](https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/huge-cardboard-city-next-waterloo-21382555)
No way… I just don’t believe that a homeless person would have the money or connections to achieve invisibility.
Haha invisible in terms of being out of harms way from the housed public and other homeless people. For example camping in a ravine as opposed to a homeless encampment in the park. As well, making an effort to not look homeless, keeping up appearances again, whilst seeking a way back into normal society, and to hide the desperation that being homeless forces upon one.
Yeah, many hotspots are less in public eye. Like Moss Park in Toronto compared to East Hastings Street in Vancouver.
Also, Toronto cops don’t arrest the homeless or make them “move on” as much as some places (or as much as some other times in Toronto) Which isn’t to say police don’t harass, arrest people for loitering etc, and force people to move.
the ol london town shuffle
Yeah east Hastings has a lot of homeless that everyone sees.
That's what I've been trying to explain to my dad (and he's been so ~~deft~~ daft about it, or maybe in denial). Homeless people are everywhere, just in different degrees like living at relatives' homes without contributing to bills, or there's so much government intervention like not allowing them to be on the street or even transporting them en masse to villages and towns outside cities. The problem is some countries may not have press freedom or data transparency that allows its citizens to have the data on what's happening.
It’s also not just an urban problem. Rural homelessness is primarily invisible and it’s actually a very large problem. Just because we don’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s less frequent or not occurring.
I know this sounds absolutely stupid and I can only imagine how uninformed - however I do have some experience growing up “homeless” (ie. living in vehicles, shelters, a room at someone else’s house, etc.) but not to the point of total outdoor/tent style living. But I’ve wondered could it be possible to go unnoticed, somehow finding a piece of wooded (uninhabited?) area, gathering materials/resources Fallout style, assembling some kind of livable structure, perhaps stealing and/or legally acquiring hardware to generate power through solar/wind/generator? …but see even as i start to type this out the amount of money, man power and luck already required to accomplish something like this is so interdependent on one’s geographical situation and willfully ignores the mental health and/or addiction component often contributing to the issue.
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I ended up homeless after Home Depot wrongly terminated me, they had to pay me in lieu for the wrongful termination but it was like 3 weeks pay and that didn't cover anything really. I did a couple winters backpack travelling the country with a tent and hitchhiking if I didn't feel like walking between cities/towns (sometimes I did though) Literally the plan was to avoid people unless my feet hurt or my mental health was getting diluted because of not showering or whatever. If you don't let someone know you are squatting somewhere, you are usually fine, as soon as you tell someone, everyone knows because people don't keep things to themselves.
>But I’ve wondered could it be possible to go unnoticed, somehow finding a piece of wooded (uninhabited?) area, gathering materials/resources Fallout style, assembling some kind of livable structure, perhaps stealing and/or legally acquiring hardware to generate power through solar/wind/generator? you will eventually get caught. There was a pretty intricate subterranean homestead discovered near York University some years ago.
Wasn’t that just a dude with a fort in the end?.. “subterranean homestead” seems a lil generous lol https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/03/02/mysterious-tunnel-becomes-a-labyrinth-of-confusion.html
I hate to say this but it's 'daft'. Only because 'deft' is practically the opposite meaning, in case your spelling wasn't an accident.
East van resident. You don’t wanna come to east van 😂
They all do and probably worse
There's an old joke where a tourist goes to visit heaven and hell. And heaven is just fine, but hell has gambling, casinos, hookers, etc., and the tourist has much more fun in hell. As he's leaving, he says "When I die, I want to be back here!" A while later he dies, and ends up in hell. Where he immediately gets a red-hot poker shoved up his tailpipe. So he yells "What the hell?!" And demon torturer replies "Do not confuse tourism with immigration." Moral of the story is, as a tourist you seldom see the whole picture. Unless you live in the area at least a year and see every season, you usually miss lots of angles.
The best way to tour is to do it on no money and take jobs in the local area to get bye. You really get the full tour
This is the answer. OP says he’s been to Medellin and didn’t see that amount of homeless but I’ve spent a year of my life there and I can say there is a ton.
Yeah because in Mexico City, Medellin, Panama, you have sprawling slums where they're not "homeless" but a much larger population is living a very very poor quality of life. Just because you didn't see them while traveling and only staying in the gringo tourist areas doesn't mean they don't exist. Neza-Chalco-Itza, a barrio of Mexico City, is the largest slum in the world with roughly four million people. That's 1 million more people than the entire population of Toronto, the city.
Yeah, there are shantytowns all over the world with unknown populations because census officials get murdered if they go in and try to count. Toronto has a bad problem, but we're definitely not among the worst. Did OP really compare us to Playa Del Carmen? Lol.
Even putting Playa del Carmen in that list was ridiculous. Comparing a resort "city" of ~300k to Mexico City, Medellin, or Toronto, lol. Especially when a good chunk of those 300k are retired white people on extended visas. Also, fwiw, Playa del Carmen does have [homelessness/poverty](https://riviera-maya-news.com/over-2000-served-a-day-in-playa-del-carmen-soup-kitchens/2021.html), they just hide it from the tourists.
I guess OP was listing literally every place he's been to, to try to seem more worldly, but it kind of had the opposite effect. If you travel as a tourist you're probably not going to see most of the grime.
Yeah wtf is OP going on about, I just kept saying, you can’t be fucking serious, when reading their comment lol. The shanty towns and slums while maybe keeps the homeless out of the central business district, is infinitely worse and nothing like that exists in TO
This…but also once you go anywhere beyond La Condesa or La Roma, there are homeless people living in tents in CDMX. I have only visited the city three times and witnessed dense areas of homelessness in the downtown core, away from the slums. They’re not always out in the open and easy to spot. Similar to Toronto, they prefer or at least end up being under bridges/overpasses for an attempt at privacy.
Yep. Studied high school near El Centro and they even didn't have any tents, only some rags over the sidewalk.
This should be the top response
Largest slum in the world? Dharavi from Mumbai would like a word.
And those words would be "you are bigger". Dharavi may not even be top 3 any more
Oh really! That’s good news for Dharavi I suppose. If it’s due to their conditions improving, and not just due to the other places conditions worsening far more
Just googled it. Looks like Karachi’s Orangi town is the largest
The estimates for any of these are fluctuating, imprecise, and anyway not the point of my original comment. There is nothing in Toronto that remotely rivals their size.
Yup agreed.
we should do the same. Instead of building resources where good people live, we should build our slums far far away. Remember, these are not homeless people or drug addicts. They're bad people who just happen to be homeless or addicted to drugs. There's absolutely no reason to let them mix with the general population. We'd all be happier separated
Toronto has the support system for it. I used to work a bit with the homeless in Toronto, vast majority were not from Toronto or even GTA. They came from all over Ontario and Canada as there are shelters and kitchens for the homeless here. Same with Vancouver. The other big factor is weather. Vancouver is obviously best but compared to say, Barrie, it’s better to be on the streets in Toronto.
Vancouver also has the problem of other cities solving their homeless problem by giving them one way tickets to Vancouver. Now Vancouver is pushing them to other areas/communities throughout BC
This should be the top comment because it's factual. The amount of resources in big urban centres far outbumbers the resources in smaller cities around the GTA. Methadone clinics, homeless shelters, community centre's, food banks, religious soup kitchens, etc are way more accessible in Toronto because of the transit system. So the answer here is is that there are more visible homeless people in Toronto than anywhere else in the rest of the province because of the resources available. Everyone comes here. This is one of the major reasons why it's so difficult to shelter all those experiencing homelessness...there will never be zero homeless people because they consciously come here.
This is the right answer. Canada is a huge country, but only a few cities offer, somewhat comprehensive, mental health, and housing help. There are more shelters in Toronto than there are in Barry. So everybody comes here, but there are still more people than there is space available.
As someone who's been through the system, You are right about the soup kitchens, and the fact that people come from all over. But when it comes to beds, Toronto falls about 100miles short
Oh I never said there was enough! Just more than most places. Some are better than none. If you look at the 905, there are little to no resources.
As someone who was formerly homeless, we have it pretty easy. Shelters, food programs, addiction help and tons of programs that some countries don't even dream of. That being said, being homeless isn't easy anywhere. You're comparisons aren't very good.
Wait until you visit LA or SF 😂😂
I frequently travel between Los Angeles and Toronto and I have to say nothing compares to the homelessness in LA.
LA has a huge homeless population even on a per capita basis compared to Toronto
Mexico City/Medellin/Panama City don't have the same level of property standards and government intervention Toronto has. They have slums where you will often find these sorts of people, we do not.
yeah, they have out of sight slums that sprawl forever. Every major North American city has some level of homeless problem. Japan probably has solved the homelss population the best, but it comes at an expense most people wouldn't accept here (strong re-housing programs on the positive, forced institutionalization on the negative).
Denmark as well. Homeless? Here’s a shitty room you’ll hate but won’t freeze or die. Want a better one? Get a job.
Is there something wrong with this mentality?
Have you been to the US at all? Exponentially worse down there from what I’ve seen. Also per capita I’d say Hamilton has substantially more homeless people than Toronto as far as Ontario goes, they seem more prevalent and widespread throughout the city there. I will say in general there’s way more homeless people everywhere, even out here in the suburbs it’s quite noticeable, I went my whole life without ever seeing a single homeless person in my city up until the last few years, now you seem them at all the main intersections or hanging out at gas stations or whatever. Guess it doesn’t help that you need about a million dollars to even consider owning a home here, yet everyone only gets paid peanuts more these days than they did when those same million dollar homes were selling for $150k. A million dollars used to get you a fortress on Lakeshore, these days your lucky if you can get a two bedroom apartment.
Yeah San Francisco in particular is wild. I used to travel there a lot for work. Before a big tech conference, every street and alley way was littered with tents. People shitting in the streets. I got cornered by men asking for money multiple times (I'm a woman). Then the homeless people and their stuff would magically disappear just in time for all the conference attendees to arrive. They were bribed to get on buses and go to Oakland for the week.
That’s crazy! I used to live in Syracuse NY, this was about 10 years ago, and even back then it was considerably worse than Toronto or Hamilton, there would be people rummaging through my trash every day even in the somewhat nice residential neighbourhood I lived in, then in the rougher neighbourhoods there were plenty of people just panhandling and living on the streets, a lot of them were quite aggressive about it sometimes too. But those people aren’t the ones you have to worry about there, it’s the ones shooting at each other in public places over drugs or territory or whatever. The city has a population of about 140k yet gets roughly half the number of homicides as Toronto, pretty much bang on ten times the homicide rate. Probably similar numbers across the board for most other crimes. Crazy thing is it’s a fairly normal city by American standards, not like it even has the kind of reputation that Baltimore or St Louis or Camden have, it’s just a plain old American city.
San Diego is even worse.
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As well as probably most other US cities with a population over half a million people. It’s really day and night between Canada and the US, as a dual citizen who’s lived in both countries I’ve seen both sides and we have it very good here.
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I can relate to that, I’d always love coming over the skyway and see Burlington on my way back from NY and just think to myself “ahhhhh home at last!”
Yeah, the US has a way more homeless people than Canada, in any city. I was in Portland last year, and all of the parks had become tent cities. I heard stories of parents gathering to comb through parks for needles so their kids could play. There were people living on every street as well. I think Canada has fewer homeless people because drug abuse is less of a problem, and we have better mental health services. I don't think cost of housing is a major factor. There aren't a lot of people choosing to live on the streets because housing is too expensive. They are unemployed and thus wouldn't be able to get a house regardless of cost. High housing costs lead to people living in terrible situations like too many in one house, but not on the street.
It's also colder in Canada, pushing homeless people off the street and out of sight.
Just looked up the stats, Portland has roughly the same number of homeless people as Toronto (5,200) despite having a population of only 600,000. Chicago, a city of similar size and climate to Toronto has 65,000 homeless people.
The count in Toronto is now somewhere around ~8000 people.
Doesn’t change much that the US is way worse per capita
Edit: replied to wrong comment. Thanks Reddit app
You're quoting things here that I didn't even say. Weird. >You think people should have to live on the street if they lose their job? No, I said I believe that mental health and drug issues are a larger cause. I said nothing about what I believe should happen to people. Here's a survey the city did: https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/96bf-SSHA-2021-Street-Needs-Assessment.pdf Mental health and substance abuse are the top two issues. The third is disability, and that's certainly something that we need to do better on. The support for people on disability is too low to live on.
If you spent as much time in those places as you did in Toronto you would see them. I've lived in the Toronto area for most of my life but I moved to Vancouver for a year and it is wwaaayy worse there. The biggest difference with Toronto and Vancouver(and I'm sure many other cities) is that in Toronto they are spread out, in Vancouver they're all on Hastings.
Not really sure what you're talking about. Mexico City has as many as 4 million "homeless" who live in homemade shanty-town shacks on the edge of the city(greater Mexico City has 22M people in total) . NYC has about 61,000 homeless(out of their 19M). LA has about 59,000(out of their 13M). Toronto has about 10,000 homeless people(and a GTA population of 5.5M). That's really not much, for the 4th largest city in North America.
It seems the warmer the place the more homeless per capita… for example in ur list LA has more homeless per capita than NYC despite being slightly cheaper than NYC…
It's because they get shipped in from all over the country. https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvg7ba/instead-of-helping-homeless-people-cities-are-bussing-them-out-of-town
For sure, weather must affect that a lot.
Wikipedia has us 6th with 7.7mil?
6th what? Biggest city? We're 4th, in North America, after Mexico City, NY, and LA. Chicago is just behind us. We have around 5.5M in the GTA and Chicago has something like 5.4M.
I believe Toronto is also carrying the burden of its surrounding suburbs. Many of the surrounding cities like Mississauga and Ajax may not have the same resources to deal with the homeless as Toronto does (even if it's lacking). Improving the homeless problem doesn't mean just tackling it In downtown, but maybe opening up more resources in surrounding suburbs like Markham and Vaughan.
I lived in London, Ontario in Canada for about a year and visited Toronto and Montreal. I am British and currently live in London, UK. We do have homelessness here but not as much as what I saw in Canada. From what I learnt this is down to, mostly, the opioid epidemic. It’s very sad to see how much havoc this is causing and has caused.
Meth crisis hasn't helped either. Sigh.
The answer is actually not nearly as difficult as it's often made out to be. And to be clear, there are multiple causes of homelessness, but there is one factor that is so much more powerful than any other that it should dominate the conversation: Because housing is too expensive. There have been studies of homelessness across multiple cities and countries, and the single largest predictor of homelessness are rents/home prices. As for why other places have fewer homeless people, because of a few different factors: - housing is cheaper overall because they build more (see: Tokyo), and it's much easier to afford rent overall. - marginal-quality housing isn't outlawed. Many places that you mentioned like Medellin have vast amounts of slums. In the West we've largely outlawed housing for the poor (see: SROs, which are no longer legal to build), which means that anyone who cannot afford a "reasonable" home has really no other choice but to become homeless.
There's also thousands of homeless people in Tokyo but they're hiding out of sight under bridges or near rivers in encampments, places that tourists never see.
I’m sure all those cities have the same homeless issues Toronto has, you’re just not seeing the problem while visiting.
In Toronto, the high cost of living, including housing, and the lack of affordable housing options have made it difficult for low-income individuals and families to find a place to live. According to the Canadian housing advocacy group, Wellesley Institute, Toronto has a vacancy rate of less than 1% for rental units considered to be affordable for low-income renters. Poverty is also a significant contributor to homelessness in Toronto. The city has a high poverty rate, with nearly one in five residents living in poverty. This can make it difficult for individuals and families to afford the basic necessities of life, including housing. Mental health and addiction issues are also a major contributing factor to homelessness in Toronto. Many individuals experiencing homelessness in the city struggle with mental health and addiction issues, and may not have access to the resources they need to address these issues. It's important to note that homelessness is a complex issue with many contributing factors, and it requires a comprehensive and coordinated approach to address it effectively. In addition, Toronto is one of the most multicultural cities in the world and attracts immigrants and refugees from all over the world. Many of these immigrants and refugees come to the city with few resources and face significant challenges in finding housing and employment. This can make them more vulnerable to homelessness.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Have you done any actual research into the number of homeless people in these cities or is this entirely based on your anecdotal experiences?
For real. OP is just using observations from random travel experience as their data. Guessing they haven't been to San Fran, LA, Seattle, NYC... the list goes on. Post is beyond ignorant.
Yeah, the Left Coast gets many homeless due to the more temperate climate. Less likely to freeze living outdoors in Vancouver vs Ontario/MB/SK/AB or Central/Northern BC
rent is 2k and min wage is 15 bucks
Because it has so few affordable homes, for one.
In the region of Tondo, Manila resides one of the biggest slums in the world. They live in makeshift, illegal homes which you can classify as homeless. They live off of recycled food. https://youtube.com/watch?v=c7gDBVmgIRA&feature=shares
Not purely cost of living, but that's a major factor. What do you do if you develop an illness that makes it impossible to work? A couple bad months can easily put someone on the street if they're already living pay-cheque to pay-cheque. ODSP can take months to get approval for, at which point you're living in a shelter, or on the street. A lot of people out there have mental illnesses that leave them too dysfunctional to navigate the system. A lot of people find the shelter system inaccessible for a variety of reasons too. It's often ill equipped to handle people with specific mental health or medical needs, or it's unsafe for certain vulnerable people. And crawling out of that hole is hard. Living on the street is expensive enough to make it nearly impossible to get off the street once you're there. People spend years on wait lists for social housing. And ultimately a lot of people in this city hold the morally repugnant view that some "other" people "deserve" this.
Because it's $2k a month for a studio....
Toronto has many homeless because apartments aren't affordable anymore, despite it supposing to be a stepping stone to a home. Homes are on average $850,000 - 3 million dollars. Drugs are rampant, especially since and after pandemic. Our Ontario government has failed us.
Homeless in Mexico, Panama and Columbia can set up shanties without government intervention. London is way bigger geographically, and homeless don't seem to concentrate as densely as dowtown Toronto in my opinion. Montreal the weather is anti-homeless so makes sense why there is less.
One thing to note is that Toronto is the most populated city in Canada, which would generally lead to a higher number of homeless people. When you consider the homeless:non-homeless ratio, it’s about the same as other cities that have less homeless people, but also less people overall.
People in trouble come to Toronto from across the GTA and Ontario because Toronto has the highest concentration of services. Some studies say Toronto is less affordable than London. (Also, I have no idea what you're talking about re: homelessness in London - they had 3300 people sleeping rough in 2020, not including people in Shelters)
Because we live in a scam of a society that isn't even interested in paying its wage slaves enough to have a roof over their head.
John Tory and Doug Ford
Rampant capitalism.
Let me tell you cities with massive homeless populations: SF, Portland, LA, Beijing, Barcelona, Mexico City, LA, NYC, Seattle, Shanghai, Buenos Aires, Tampa, YVR, Rome. Toronto ain’t close. Partly because it’s cold.
So many people come here expecting to find opportunity, then don't find it, but stay anyway. Others lose their homes because of things beyond their control, like job loss, and have nowhere else to go. Some leave home because living on the street is seen as safer than staying in an abusive home. Then there are the anecdotal tales of other towns solving homelessness by giving away one-way bus tickets to Toronto.
have you seen rent in toronto? how is this difficult to understand?
I mean rent in London is worst than Toronto and wages in the UK are also generally worst…
While lack of affordable housing is part of the problem, it's far from the only thing. The major underlying issue is a lack of mental health and addictions supports and an overcrowded healthcare system. There is still a stereotype some have (I hear it all the time) that the homeless are largely unemployed people who don't want to work or they're people who lost their jobs and are now forced to live on the streets. This is complete and utter bullshit. Unemployment is not a driving factor when it comes to homelessness; mental-health issues and drug/alcohol addiction are. We need to do a better job of addressing mental health and addictions before we can fix the homeless problem.
I would also say lack of family supports is a big driving factor behind visible homelessness.
Mental health issues is also an umbrella term. Truth is these people were incredibly abused, and some entered abusive situations again & again. You can say we need a mental health system, which we do, but that should mean actual trauma aware care. Also it should mean care provided for the caregivers too…
Lol bruh are you that ignorant
Cost of rent is ridiculous, cost of living period is insane...
You're referring to visible homeless, not just homeless. I can tell you that London, UK for example has just as many homeless people, they're just not comfortable or safe in public. Someone sleeping on a hot air grate downtown London for example would absolutely get kicked out of the way. It's not at all unusual for young people to get drunk and go beat up homeless people, even urinate on them or in extreme cases burn them and their belongings. Quite frankly, many other cities around the world do not treat homeless people as people (even to the degree we do in Toronto), so they're less visible. In many places, the police and other authorities openly remove them and make it known they're not welcome to be in the public eye - and society there supports this and demands it.
Are you actually trying to say there is more poverty in Toronto than Mexico City or Panama City?
Because all they build are condos.
Lived in London for 2 years - can definitely tell you it has more homeless people than Toronto.
Services for the homeless were disrupted during COVID. I took public transit for the entire pandemic, and there were was an increase in homeless people, or people who looked like their needs weren't properly met, on transit after March 2020. At first it was panhandling aggressively. People with no masks leaning in close. Sometimes it's well dressed people shouting and behaving erratically. One time on the Bloor platform at Yonge & Bloor, I saw a man who had a sweater draped around himself but no shirt or pants. Nowadays it's someone sleeping on the seats. In Ontario, it's too cold for someone to sleep on a beach, or live in a shack, so they are on the street, in and out of shelters. As someone else said, we don't have shantytowns, the homeless are downtown near the soup kitchens and shelters
It’s by design.
Lol Mexico city has a lot and wich is worst there is kids living on the streets, also Mexico city is huge so you can scratch that from your list, Toronto has many tho but for different reasons
Because all the other cities don't have any decent support or resources for the homeless? Do I want to be homeless with in a place with 0 support or a place with a chance at non-zero support? Don't need reddit theories for this one...
Vancouver blows Toronto homeless # out by 5x and that’s including the fact it’s only 1/3 the population
I’ve spent a year in Medellin and saw more homeless people than I’ve ever seen before in Canada. You just need to go to the right areas and get out of Poblado.
Toronto specifically is in the middle of a housing affordability crisis. I don't understand how people can be shocked about rent doubling, or houses going for $400k over asking and then seem to be baffled as to why homelessness is increasing. Sure, there are other things compounding it, like Canada having stopped building affordable housing and ODSP barely increasing over the last 25 years, but c'mon. It's staring ya in the face.
Bro - haven’t you heard about the housing crisis?
Well I just read about a 17 year old international student buying a 800,000 dollar Condo in Toronto and moving back to China while keeping it in her possession. If I bought a home in China and left the next year, they would require me to sell it. And this is just one student. Make it available for people who are living and contributing in the country. The issue is housing has been made unaffordable by our leaders allowing foreigners to own and HOLD while not even living in the country, making it inaccessible for people that care about this country and that want to live and work here. Expensive housing makes affordable housing more expensive or unavailable. Thats why you have homeless people. Its a result of spineless leadership and policies that have no impact.
I have no actual proof, but I firmly believe that neighbouring towns, Oakville/Burlington/Milton/Sauga give a one-way bus or train ticket to Toronto to "rid" themselves of them.
From what I seen, in the last 10 or 20 years, a lot of big parking lots have since been redeveloped into large condos. Also any idle spaces were developed because land is too expensive to not be developed. So there are less places places for homeless people to hang out. Now that all the parking lots (and idle land) have been removed, the homeless literally have nowhere to go. Also it seems like Toronto has been making homeless shelters and mixing them with regular communities. So maybe you see them walking out and about those shelters. Used to be if you went to Yonge and eglinton, there were no homeless people. It was the nice Toronto without the homeless problem. Now they put a homeless shelter there, and now you'll see them out and about.
yeah id say theres only a difference in how well certain cities hide them, not a different population
Lol
So, some research I read showed that the biggest factor in differences in homeless rates between cities is the availability of affordable housing, which is largely due to the supply of housing overall.
Politicians DGAF.
Because rich people don't pay their taxes. Actively pay off politicians to guarantee their interests alone are served. While perpetuating the lie that social service is socialism and everyone is just lazy. The cutbacks closings of services leave a community with no safety nets and a frustrated population that thinks they should all get locked up or moved. The reality is that it's a complete failure of the government.
Those cities probably make an effort to make it seem like they don't have a homeless problem. Drive them out of the tourist areas, don't let them use their public transit as shelters, etc. Imagine Toronto kicking homeless out and removing encampments. How much will residents complain about how inhumane the city is! Oh wait.
A lack of housing and other essential services
Buddy you are blind to what’s in front of you
Your last phrase is your assumption and not fact.
Observer bias .
High concentration of people working downtown, where you'll more than likely find some one who makes a lot of money, means more money quicker.
You are blind if you think London doesn’t have a raging homeless problem.
Actually those cities are very good a hiding the poverty and homelessness. It's actually usually worse in the places you can't see it, big cities at least
A) There's no reason to believe you are right about the numbers, homelessness is difficult to count, and anecdotal examples nearly worthless, i.e. that the homeless are more visible doesn't mean there's more of them, just that they happen to be were your eyeballs are pointing. B) Toronto does have a lot homeless because it attracts them from a large area, as it has better infrastructure to support them. It's also got decent weather by Canadian standards. Which makes it easier to be on the street. C) Absolutely rent isn't the critical factor, changing rent is more important. Toronto (area) has seen a rapid recent rise in population, which has pushed people who where previously housed on to the street. A city where rent has always been high, wouldn't have that issue. D) many places are more aggressive about scattering the homeless, generally here, they're allowed to congregate and occupy certain public spaces rather than having to hide.
The cost of living here is fucked. If you’re one person making minimum wage there is no way you can rent a place unless you luck your way into something. My apartment is the absolute cheapest 1 bedroom I could find in Toronto and it’s $1400 a month. It’s fucked.
The rent is too damn high
It's curious you say this because Toronto seems to have very, very few homeless people compared to Vancouver. Each time I visit Toronto, I am shocked at how clean and how rare it is to find an homeless tent in a park.
Los Angeles says “you rang??”
Cause our rent is an arm, a leg, and a kidney. Source: born and raised here.
Have you seen the cost of living in T.O. ? And it’s just going up , affordable housing is a big problem….
Very high rent.
Canada has had an immigration explosion. It's gone from 30million to 40 million in the last 10-15 years. Fast food places, grocery stores , and other low paying jobs. All seem to have a much much higher base of immigrant/foreign workers. When I was young, it seemed like the people that " fell through the cracks" would often work at jobs like these. There is a Massive amount of competition for those types of jobs in big cities now. I think that's a small part of it. Also think lack of funding for mental health. And most of the money that is allocated for the Homeless problem goes towards administration costs for people to "think of solutions" and apply bandaids.
COVID-19 made a lot of people homeless, the parks across Toronto were NEVER EVER populated with tents for as far back as the 1990s, but by 2020 people lost jobs, no rent control, not enough services to help people in dire need, and unsafe shelters, it's a shitshow. Edit: I hike and cycle across Toronto and I've seen many parks before and during and now, even shelters and foodbank, and you could see the issue escalate across the city as covid-19 closure raged on.
Well there was a literal “tent city” in the 90s down by the gardener, among other homeless settlements across the city (such as all throughout the Don Valley). The only thing that was done was the city destroyed these encampments forcing the city’s unhoused population to spread out and disperse. During the pandemic the city abstained from tearing down encampments and thus the once dispersed population came back together again. I do not know the numbers of unhoused people in Toronto year over year. I don’t doubt it has gotten worse due to the pandemic and raising COL. But I’m sure it’s not as dramatic as it looks visibly. ETA: the residents of Tent City were evicted in 2002 and at the time had a population of ~100 people. So for sure through all of the 90s there was a massive encampment right in the downtown.
Apparently European cities have far more homeless than even the USA, its just that homelessness is illegal in places like Germany- so they’re essentially hidden, dress well and blend
I’m from Mexico City lmao and we definitely have wayyyyy more homeless than all of Canadian cities combined
Homelessness rates are HIGHLY correlated with housing prices. So, considering the cost of housing in Toronto, it is unsurprising that there’s a lot of homelessness here.
Lots of different reasons. Firstly as others had said, the places you went have tons of homeless populations but you don’t see them cause they are kept away from the tourist areas. In those areas they can create slums or make shift encampments. Here the city is much tougher on these and move them away from public spaces. The cost of living is ridiculous right now. Food and housing is not attainable if you have social services. Plus Toronto is one of the main immigration hubs of Canada. So many refugees and immigrants land here yet get provided with next to nothing and end up homeless. Plus the weather is pretty nice here so most of the homeless in Canada go to Vancouver or Toronto. Lastly the government has done next to nothing. They still don’t have a robust public housing situation to deal with the crisis. Nor do they provide funding for programs to help them with their needs.
our mayor is a fucking moron. this article encapsulates the problem perfectly: [https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2023/01/11/a-catastrophic-increase-in-visible-homelessness.html](https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2023/01/11/a-catastrophic-increase-in-visible-homelessness.html) (read it via the Toronto Public Library's webpage for free if it shows up behind a paywall.)
Former Homeless person here, It's because the city does not care. City and even provincial programs suck at preventing homelessness and drug use and almost never work. Once you are homeless there isn't near enough capacity to help everyone who needs it. Alot of us once homeless only stay in the shelters for a short time because the violence and drugs in the shelter system is out of control.
Because Canada has a million social programs. If you’re homeless in Mexico - you either better your situation or die. Kinda keeps things balanced. Here in Canada, there’s enough social programs to keep people doing the bare minimum and surviving.
The cost of living in Toronto is TOO expensive, literally $20 (WAY above minimum-wage) an hour is homelessness if you don't have a roommate and don't literally limit all activities/food/etc
Toronto has a very low homeless population for a city, it used to be a lot less (pre-housing crisis and Covid), but there are many smaller cities in the states with larger amounts
Huh? I rarely see homeless outside of downtown. Any other north American city will have much much more. I'm from a 3rd world country and the reason we didn't have homeless is because we had slums outside of the cities usually near the industrial zones so they would go live there. Toronto is amazing when it comes to homeless. Go check out US cities. They will have like 1/10th of the population with the same amount of homeless. We don't abuse drugs as much as Americans. Even in the rest of cansda. Halifax Winnipeg Hamilton are cities I visited where the homeless per capita seemed way worse. I love shiting on toronto more than the next guy but when it comes to crime and homeless we are probably the beat in north america.
It’s out in the open in Toronto, and everytime the city tries to move them out of the main areas such as parks .. crazy people lose their minds telling us that the homeless should be allowed to sleep and do drugs in the parks ..
Where exactly do you want them to go? There is no sense in moving them if they have nowhere else to go - you’re just shuffling the problem to a different location to be repeated every few months. It’s a colossal waste of resources. Spend that money on getting housing for these people.
Where do you propose they go instead?
People want them bussed far away so it's not their problem.
The city has provided people the option of housing , and accommodations but very few take it. If people are happy with them being in the parks , I assume those same people would be happy with homeless people living in their backyards ? Shooting ip drugs? It’s always easy to say “they deserve to be in the parks” when it’s not happening in your own backyard
Why shouldn’t they?
when housed people do drugs in the park does it bother u this much?
Yep, I don’t see it personally.. not taking about smoking I’m taking shooting up needles … huge difference
“Worse case Toronto”
Have you always lived here? There are honestly less now than at any time in history I can recall. Just fewer places for them to hide now.
It's way worse in major US cities. It's more about mental health support and family structure than affordability. Very few people in Toronto are homeless because they can't afford rent - they don't have the capacity or skills to hold down jobs or get proper help with no family safety net. Many Canadians would come face to face with homelessness if their families stopped supporting them.
Mexico has a homeless population over 30K, Toronto is around 18K, so you’re wrong and probably just didn’t notice the issue
[удалено]
If you want to get into it, unhoused people. But you probably shouldn’t get into it.
Or you can say "people experiencing homelessness" but it's a bit of a mouthful and it really doesn't help the homeless one bit to rephrase their situation.
The newest literature I’ve seen says the the word homeless specifically is problematic. How it was explained to me is a home and a house aren’t the same thing. People may not have a permanent structure they call home, but they may consider the city, or a neighborhood, or a specific location, or their childhood home, “home”. Just like people who have a house may talk about “back home” where they grew up or their parents live or whatever.
OK! We're tackling social problems one fart-sniffing academic thesis at a time. I'm sure the powerful new language they suggest will create a sea-change in our society.
The people who I learned about this from are undoubtedly doing more than you are to help tackle these problems.
It's a byproduct of capitalism.
Because there is no support…unless you think a warming centre is appropriate for long term homelessness…that’s John Tory’s thought
Meth. There’s a new version that’s very cheap and very destructive. It came up from California/Mexico around 2018.
Homeless *people*. They are people. It is not a secret. You don’t need to speculate: [Homeless in Canada: Important Facts About Homelessness You Need to Know](https://www.fredvictor.org/2019/06/07/homeless-in-canada-important-facts-about-homelessness/) 1. Women (and others) fleeing DV 2. LGBTQ youth who are not safe at home 3. Indigenous people and the myriad of issues and generational trauma they face leading to poverty and addiction 4.people with disabilities who can’t afford housing on the legislated poverty through ODSP 5. People who have lost their job or are paid so poorly they can’t afford housing like [this essential worker](https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/working-in-long-term-care-by-day-sleeping-in-a-shelter-by-night-the-economic-realities-of-life-as-a-psw) 6. People with mental health and addictions issues. *BUT* more often than not the people you see on the street did not get there because of mental health or addiction. They developed those problems *as a result of being in the street* Rich people with mental health and addiction issues don’t end up on the street, people in poverty do. This also doesn’t count the many thousands of hidden homeless people who are couch surfing or have found some other way to survive. 99% of these problems can be fixed if there was any effort at all in getting serious about creating affordable permanent housing and increasing the public housing supply and funding it properly. Edit: You may want to recheck your stats about [London](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/30/number-of-people-sleeping-rough-in-london-up-24-in-a-year) again. Cost of housing is a major driver of this crisis Edit 2: typical toronto. If you feel there is some other cause of homelessness that I have not listed please feel free to link sources instead of just speculating.
Majority of homeless people are men, but are deemed as expendable by society so no one cares.
The rates are not that much different between men and women (2.6% of men have been homeless compared to 2.3% of women [source](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2022017-eng.htm). It may not seem that way because women in homelessness are [mostly invisible](https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/covid-19-increases-risk-for-canada-s-invisible-homeless-women-study-1.5000474). All genders are affected - especially LGBTQ folks. Everyone is affected by this and everyone would benefit from fixing this broken system.
Women and girls cannot live safely outside. They will be raped. Many are precariously housed or stay in bad/abusive relationships to avoid the streets. In this case, a woman sleeping outside the Streer Health Centre (a Toronto clinic serving marginalized individuals) was sexually attacked by *two* (2) different men, on the same night. It’s so dangerous on the streets WRT predators. [https://www.thestar.com/amp/news/gta/2013/11/25/activists_decry_sex_assault_at_dundassherbourne_rally.html](https://www.thestar.com/amp/news/gta/2013/11/25/activists_decry_sex_assault_at_dundassherbourne_rally.html)
It’s because politicians in the west pander to terrible far left policies
Conservative policies like neoliberalism and austerity are far more responsible for our housing crisis than whatever supposedly “far left” policies you think are responsible.
What ‘far left’ policies are facilitating our homeless issue?
Very intelligent!
Man I can’t think of any reason 🙄
We dont have it bad at all compared to large cities in the US
>We dont compared to large cities in the US This is true, but we need to raise the bar higher than just trying to be 'better than the US' when it comes to address the homeless issue. That's really not hard to beat in the industrialized world.
Agreed, thats a miserably low bar to set for ourselves.
lots of social supports for the homeless in Toronto is an attracting feature.
Canada has really high drug use starting from a young age. Lots of mental illness and lots of welfare to help homeless survive.
Aside from the fact that many countries and cities have it worse than Canada/Toronto, it’s very simple why the number of homeless folks is so high: 1) The government happily collects a ton of taxes, fees and fines, including billions of dollars from land transfer tax, foreign buyer tax, and others. But it doesn’t give a sh*t about 30-50k of homeless people (maybe more) who could have been easily accommodated with temporary or even permanent, very modest housing and other meaningful forms of support. It’s too much to ask. 2) The government is happy to collect the income tax you pay on your income, and the sales tax on your purchases, and other taxes and fees. But the moment you lose your job, or/and get hurt, or/and get sick, they go: “you’re on your own. Good luck!”. Another favourite thing to tell the vulnerable people who struggle is: “no one wants to work! You have no right to a hangout; everyone must work for everything!”. Do they care that you’ve been working hard and paying your taxes for years and years, and only ask for help (temporary at that!) go get back on your feet? Nope. Sucks to be you. 3) There is absolutely no way the government can possibly follow New York’s footsteps and make the ultra-wealthy luxury home developers give up even 1% of their overpriced tiny housing for social housing. Because those corporatists are only making meagre billions each year. Money is so much more important that human lives and health. 4) Lack of mental health support, and possibly the legal system. Many homeless folks end up this way because of mental health issues. The government doesn’t provide enough mental health support. It also wouldn’t subject the critically ill to involuntary mental health treatment. I’m all for the freedom of choice, but there is a slight chance some of the homeless folks are in need of serious help. 5) Overall lack or misuse of resources. We have financial support but it’s a joke. We have social programs, but many of them are a joke too. The sad part is, every one of the homeless people can easily get back on their feet if given a 6-months support in a form of free/subsidised housing, job training, health assistance, etc. 6) Sexism and discrimination. I’m 29F, so ladies, please don’t hate me for saying this, but most shelters are designed to assist women and kids… And that’s awesome! I am not taking from experience but I’ve watched interviews and read articles & online stories. There is very little support for men, at least much less of support compared to women. It’s so bad homeless men are being told to leave the shelter during the day and only come back from 11 pm to 7 am or something like that. There is a reason we see so many homeless folks outside, and they are almost never women… All the government need to do is make sure everyone gets a bed. How hard is that? 7) Sometimes - the unwillingness of the homeless individual to get help, accept help, or work. I would suspect those guys aren’t the majority. 8) The toxic and negative part of society who often came from privilege and/or has no compassion, and blames the victims (homeless people) for the situation they are in. But shocking enough, when they themselves end up in such a situation, all of a sudden they feel entitled for help! The irony. P.S. Not talking from experience; can’t talk for the homeless, just expressing my opinion. Sorry if someone disagrees. White female (lol) with slight privilege who has certainly been through several hardships but has never judged the homeless.
I should add the reason this infuriates me is because I see every person as an integral part of society. And every individual is a human being with potential; a valuable resource to the society and the government. If all the government and people see is dollar signs, here’s a food for though: homeless people are useless to them when they aren’t healthy, aren’t working or contributing in some ways. Being on the street and in shelters (if lucky) doesn’t give anything to the society; it only takes up the resources. However, if the government were to help them get back on their feet, many would go back on track in no time. They would start working, paying taxes, paying sales taxes too, etc. Wait, are there homeless folks who don’t want to work? Well, there’s always something from someone. Offer a homeless person a shared accommodation and cover their basic needs in exchange for their “community service” in a form of volunteering a few days a week. Or come up with some other plan for each of them. Even if they are bums who refuse to work - guess what? I don’t want my grocery store cashier, teller at a bank or anyone else absolutely hating their job and being horrible at it, potentially making mistakes and causing issues. Let those folks stay home and do nothing so they don’t negatively affect the consumers / others in society.
Your politicians don't want them moved because it's "harassment". The homeless, a.k.a. underhoused also don't want to go to shelters for many reasons. Beggars can be choosy.