Homelessness in Canada - History

History

While in Canada there has always been a certain portion of the population that was very poor, it is not until recently, after the 1980s, that "homeless" has come to mean the "unhoused" versus those simply living in poor quality housing. Previously, the "homeless" was a general term applied mostly to transient men with no family ties, such as the migrant workers who travelled by freight hopping during the Great Depression.

Homelessness remained a minor concern as extremely cheap accommodation was available in 'skid row' rooming houses or flophouses located in the poorest parts of most major cities. Even the most destitute could find some form of housing, even if its quality was abysmal.

At the end of the Second World War in 1946, the federal government created the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) to make mortgages and home ownership more accessible to people and organizations. The surplus generated by the CMHC was used in the 1980s to fund non-profit, Aboriginal, and rent supplement housing.

However, following changes to Canada's National Housing Act housing act in 1996 to give the CMHC "more flexibility", it was able to directly fund social housing and its role in supporting new and existing affordable housing diminished. Today the CMHC still exists, and its annual surpluses ($7.6 billion in 2006) raises questions as to why some of this money cannot be spent on new housing initiatives.

About 20,000 social housing units were created every year following the 1973 amendments to the National Housing Act. Starting in the mid 1980s, the federal government initiated a series of cuts in funding for national housing programs. While accurate statistics on the homeless population are hard to gather, it is the general consensus that the number of homeless increased considerably beginning in the 1980s.

Despite Canada's economy this trend continued, and perhaps even accelerated in the 1990s. In Toronto, for instance, admissions to homeless shelters increase by 75% between 1988 and 1998 After 1993 the national affordable housing program initiated in 1973 was cut and Canada's focus in addressing homelessness in the 1990s was to create more homeless shelters and emergency services A decade later, in 2003, the federal government resumed spending on housing investment at $2.03 billion, a 25% decline from 1993 levels of $1.98 billion when adjusted for inflation.