1   Homelessness in Small Cities

The Abdication of Federal Responsibility

Terry Kading and Christopher Walmsley

Homelessness. We see it in our parks, on our streets, and in our alleys. But these are just the public faces of the issue. Homelessness also hides in tents and beneath bridges; it sleeps in shelters and eats in soup kitchens. Sometimes it moves from couch to couch, bouncing between friends and family members. Sometimes homelessness is born in the middle of the night as a woman flees from violence, or on a cold afternoon after the EI runs out and the rent is late. (HAP Steering Committee 2010, 3)

Homelessness has become a standard feature of Canada’s urban landscape. That people should be obliged to live on the streets is inexcusable in a wealthy country, one capable of providing housing for the entire population. In a country of long and extremely frigid winters, continuing to tolerate homelessness is fundamentally inhumane. Although, over roughly the past two decades, measures have been undertaken by both the federal and provincial governments to address homelessness, these have so far proved inadequate to solve the problem, particularly in the face of other trends in government that work to exacerbate it. From the standpoint of public policy, homelessness is one result of the triumph of a neoliberal market ideology, with its fixation on minimizing public expenditures, in part through the privatization of social services. As has long been recognized, however, in the absence of public subsidies, no incentive exists for the private sector to build low-cost housing, which is precisely why the federal government originally intervened in the housing market. Simply put, the private sector typically shows little interest in manufacturing products (including houses) or providing services for people who cannot afford to purchase them at standard market rates.

It is also well established that the costs of homelessness far outweigh the costs of providing adequate shelter to individuals in need. In testimony provided in June 2007 to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science, and Technology, Kim Kerr, then the executive director of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Residents’ Association, commented: “People should be pushed to do something simply out of humanity, but if you want to talk about money, it costs $48,000 a year to leave someone on the street. It costs $28,000 a year to house them. That argument has been around for a long time. It does not seem to make any difference” (Canada, Parliament, Senate 2009, 107). Estimates of the cost differential vary, of course, depending on time and place. In 2008, for example, researchers at Simon Fraser University concluded that it costs BC taxpayers at least $55,000 per year to allow an adult with severe addictions and/or mental illness to remain on the streets, as opposed to $37,000 to provide such an individual with adequate housing and support services (Patterson et al. 2008, 10–11). Among the costs of homelessness are increased demands on health care services (often emergency ones), expenses related to the construction and operation of temporary shelters, and additional burdens on police forces and the legal system, many consequent on local bylaws that attempt to criminalize the homeless. But these are merely the quantifiable costs: the human costs are incalculable.

Yet, despite these realities, federal funding for national homelessness initiatives has steadily dwindled over the years, a trend reversed only in the March 2017 budget, with its announcement of a new National Housing Strategy. In addition, in order to access funding, individual municipalities have been expected to develop and then implement a local “homelessness plan.” Communities have, in other words, been compelled to enter directly into the complexities of social planning and health policy—areas in which higher levels of government have historically assumed leadership. Small cities have limited financial resources, however, and they often lack the planning expertise required to formulate and implement effective strategies. Moreover, their jurisdictional authority is limited.

In comparison to small cities, major urban centres, some of which boast long-established social planning departments, generally have considerable experience with housing policy, as well as a greater array of options for generating new streams of revenue. They are thus in a somewhat better position to undertake homelessness initiatives—although even they have been unable to reverse the situation.1 Quite apart from their relatively limited capacities and resources, however, local municipalities also have less flexibility and autonomy than larger cities: they are obliged to rely more heavily on the largesse and the good will of federal and provincial governments in order to make substantive inroads in addressing homelessness. This dependence introduces a highly unpredictable variable into the planning process in small cities, no matter how committed the local government may be to addressing the long-term needs of the homeless population. As a result of this contingency, whether one is attempting to evaluate a small city in contrast to larger urban centres or simply in terms of the effectiveness of its own initiatives, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions simply by looking at statistical outcomes, such as the degree of decline observed in the rate of homelessness over a given period.

In other words, to be meaningful, evaluations of relative success or failure must take into account the context within which specific responses are situated. The immediate sources of homelessness, the magnitude and demographics of the homeless population, and the local political, social, and economic forces that influence attempts at solutions—all these play a role in outcomes. In addition to estimating numbers, homeless counts, which now occur on a fairly regular basis, provide profiles of the homeless population in specific small cities. Municipal reports and planning documents, media coverage, and interviews with city planners also offer insights into local circumstances and constraints, as well as into the scale of gains. At the same time, one must recognize that neither large cities nor small ones can be expected to resolve the underlying causes of homelessness, responsibility for which resides elsewhere. In the words of one recent study, “Municipalities require a strategic federal response that addresses the underlying structural causes of poverty, precarious housing and homelessness” (Adamo et al. 2016, 4). The reason that local governments now find themselves on the front line of the homelessness issue is, in short, rooted in policies devised and pursued by higher levels of government.

In what follows, we examine the origins of the homelessness crisis in Canada and its impact on small cities. We focus, in particular, on four small cities in British Columbia—Kamloops, Kelowna, Nanaimo, and Prince George—all of which have been obliged to embark on social planning initiatives in the face of growing homeless populations. By reflecting on these local responses, we hope to shed light on the consequences of the broader devolution of responsibility onto municipal governments, which are now held accountable for developing solutions to social problems not ultimately of their own creation.

Homelessness Policy in Canada: From National Programs to Local Initiatives

The increasingly visible presence of homeless individuals on the streets of cities and towns across Canada is not something over which we as a nation have had no control. Rather, the rising rates of homelessness are a result of deliberate policy changes instituted over the past several decades by the federal government, as well as by provincial administrations. Writing at the turn of the millennium, Barbara Murphy (2000, 19) succinctly summed up the main determinants of homelessness:

At the root of homelessness is poverty and the shocking reality that we are now tolerating a level of poverty that leaves so many without a roof over their head. Beyond the root cause of poverty we also tolerate a housing situation in our cities that provides little or no accommodation the poor can afford. The formula is simple—combine a growing number of poor and a growing number of expensive housing units and we have people on the streets. Add to this a failure to recognize that the mentally ill cannot manage on their own, economically or with even the simplest of life’s demands, and we have even more people on the streets.

As Murphy implies, without a shift both in public attitudes and in housing policy, the problem of homelessness will continue to grow, as indeed it has. Social and economic forces have cooperated to generate what Richard Florida (2017) calls “a crisis of gentrification, rising inequality and increasingly unaffordable urban housing,” with rising prices far outstripping income growth (see Demographia 2017, 19–22). This situation has been exacerbated by efforts to reduce spending at both the federal and provincial levels, consequent on the entrenchment of neoliberal principles of fiscal management. As we will see, in government circles, the result has been broad disagreement, underscored by attitudes of intransigence, regarding who should be held responsible for the provision of adequate housing, let alone for the growing homeless population.

With respect to housing, this lack of consensus in part reflects the division of power laid out in Canada’s constitution. The Constitution Act, 1867 (Canada, Department of Justice 2012), established the basic jurisdictional domains of the federal government and the provinces. Section 92 granted provincial legislatures the exclusive right to make laws concerning the “property and civil rights” of those residing within the province. Houses qualify as “property,” and, in a broad interpretation of “civil rights,” the provision of social services that provide support to individuals and households in dire need was originally assumed to fall within provincial jurisdiction. At the same time, as was clear from section 91, the federal government was responsible for the regulation of commerce, banking, and credit—that is, for matters relevant to the purchase of homes through mortgages as well as to financing for their construction. In addition, the federal government has always retained the constitutional power to take action on issues of national concern.

The passage, in 1937, of the Home Improvement Loans Guarantee Act, followed, in 1938, by the first National Housing Act, signalled the entry of the federal government into the realm of housing policy. This role was further solidified immediately after World War II, with the creation of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).2 In the early postwar period, federal policies favoured the middle class, in hopes of fostering a dynamic that would indirectly address the housing needs of low-income earners. Describing the period as “a time of federal leadership,” Barbara Carroll (2002, 73) notes that “primary emphasis was placed on the provision of single-family detached owner-occupied housing for middle-income families, under the assumption that low-income problems could be solved through filtering. That is, the middle-income groups who moved to the suburbs would vacate smaller, older, cheaper housing closer to the urban core, making it available for low-income groups.”

During the 1950s and 1960s, the federal and provincial governments also pushed an aggressive urban renewal strategy, targeting Canada’s largest urban centres. Urban renewal programs entailed the construction of high-density housing to compensate for the dislocations associated with so-called slum clearance. The resulting public housing projects served to stigmatize the poor, however, by relegating them to cheaply constructed apartment blocks located in areas where their occupants were unlikely to intrude on the lives of middle- to upper-income home owners or undermine property values. Even with that, these large public housing initiatives generated numerous complaints and would lose support by the late 1960s. Despite their evident failings, however, such projects, which significantly expanded the role of federal and provincial governments in the provision of low-income housing, established a stock of publicly owned land, especially in larger cities, while they also created a base of housing expertise at both levels of government (Murphy 2000, 96–98; Layton 2008, 263–65).

The 1969 Report of the Federal Task Force on Housing and Urban Development (Hellyer 1969) is generally credited with ending the practice of “slum clearance” and redirecting efforts towards alternative approaches to the provision of affordable housing. One such approach was “mixed-income” housing. As Murphy (2000, 98–99) explains,

Rather than ghettos of low-income residents, small-scale projects that housed residents with a range of incomes were to receive federal funding in the form of 100 percent mortgage assistance. These mixed-income projects were provided by non-profit or cooperative housing corporations which assigned a quarter of the project units to low-income tenants in exchange for the 100 percent loans. The federal government subsidized the rents of low-income tenants and, in effect, subsidized the rents of all income groups in these projects by paying the difference between what tenants paid and actual costs. Not only were projects smaller and better designed to accommodate their predominantly middle-class residents, but mixed-income housing also got around the problem of neighbourhood resistance.

As Murphy (2000, 99) notes, such housing projects became very popular in the mid-1970s, with the total number of units rising from 1,500 in 1973 to 22,000 in 1978, even if only a fraction of these units were intended for low-income residents. Under the leadership of Pierre Trudeau, the Liberal government also followed through on a promise made in 1974 to fund a million new housing starts within the next four years, with an emphasis on the creation of low-income housing (Coutts 2000, 190, 234). While no explicit commitment existed to providing shelter for all, federal-provincial cost-sharing arrangements were making progress in addressing multiple shortcomings in both housing and social assistance.

This momentum was, however, short-lived in the face of broader economic and budgetary problems that started to emerge in the late 1970s and persisted throughout the 1980s. The multiplicity of programs, as well as the heavy subsidies required to achieve results for low-income earners, made housing an area particularly vulnerable to death by a thousand cuts, cuts that were gradually introduced by the federal government over a period of roughly a decade. Cuts to housing programs began in November 1984, not long after the election of Brian Mulroney’s Conservative government, with a $217.8 million reduction in federal funding for housing development and rehabilitation (Layton 2008, 233). In 1985, federal policies changed so that financial assistance was available only for residents of low-income housing, thereby ending subsidies to low-income residents of mixed-income projects. Although social housing projects funded through cost-sharing arrangements had benefited low-income residents, the late 1980s brought cutbacks to these programs, with the number of new units falling from more than 20,000 in 1987 to under 7,000 in 1993 (Murphy 2000, 99–100). In 1993, the Mulroney government cancelled funding for new nonprofit or cooperative housing projects and capped federal expenditures on social housing at $2 billion annually. Jack Layton (2008, 233) calculates that, during the decade of Conservative rule, from 1984 to 1993, federal cuts to housing programs totalled some $1.8 billion.

The trend towards federal withdrawal from housing initiatives continued after the Liberals came to power in November 1993, under the leadership of Jean Chrétien. The 1996 federal budget, prepared by finance minister Paul Martin, announced a thirty-year plan to end federal funding for housing by gradually downloading existing federal housing programs onto the provinces and territories, with the intention of reducing the federal contribution from its current level of $1.7 billion to zero by the end of the period (Shapcott 2007, 9–10). Although this process of downloading entailed extensive negotiations between the federal government and the provinces, “the architects of this withdrawal turned their backs on towns and cities, none of which were represented in any of the inter-governmental discussions that led to the devolution of Canada’s housing projects” (Duffy, Royer, and Beresford 2014, 22). During the 1990s, provincial governments replicated the federal retreat from public and subsidized housing—but, in this case, there was no “organized devolution,” no process of provincial-municipal negotiation (22). Once again, cities were basically not consulted.

By the end of the decade, only a very small number of new public housing units were being built in Canada, given that the subsidies needed to promote the construction of low-income rental or housing units had largely been whittled away in the drive to rein in federal and provincial spending and balance budgets. Indeed, after 1993, when the Mulroney government terminated funding for new social housing, until the early 2000s, only British Columbia and Québec continued to provide such housing (Irwin 2004, 7), albeit on the basis of substantially reduced financial resources. Thus, by the late 1990s, neither the federal government nor provincial administrations were addressing the housing needs of low-income citizens in any significant way. In 2014, it was estimated that, over the previous two decades, some 100,000 units of affordable housing had not been built owing to the cancellation of programs (Gaetz, Gulliver, and Richter 2014, 5).

During the 1990s, the numbers of homeless swiftly grew in Canada’s largest urban centres, as did public concern, especially given the risk of death from exposure to subzero temperatures. In late 1999, Chrétien’s government announced the creation of the National Homelessness Initiative (NHI). Recognizing that “no one level of government or sector of Canadian society can, alone, solve the problem of homelessness,” the NHI initially invested $753 million over a period of three years in “a strategy designed to facilitate collaborative approaches—among governments, the voluntary and private sectors—to address the challenges posed by the homeless throughout Canada” (Canada, HRDC 2001, 2). As its core objectives, the NHI aimed to:

• Facilitate community capacity by coordinating Government of Canada efforts and enhancing the diversity of tools and resources;
• Foster effective partnerships and investment that contribute to addressing the immediate and multifaceted needs of the homeless and reducing homelessness in Canada; and
• Increase awareness and understanding of homelessness in Canada. (Canada, HRDC 2003, 7)

In addition to a research component, the NHI comprised initiatives in the areas of Aboriginal homelessness and youth homelessness. Its main component, however, was the Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative, which provided funds directly to communities that had demonstrated the existence of a significant homeless population. Founded on a basic “premise,” namely, that “communities are best placed to devise effective strategies to both prevent and reduced homelessness locally” (HRDC 2003, 8), the initiative sought to allow communities “to allocate funds according to their particular needs,” while also encouraging “the establishment of a ‘continuum of supports’ (i.e., prevention, emergency shelter, outreach, support services, transitional, supportive and permanent housing)” (i). In addition to drawing up a community plan to address homelessness, participating communities were required to secure funding commitments from other sources, which the federal government would then match up to the maximum amount allocated for each community (Canada, HRDC 2001, 4). Although 80 percent of this NHI funding stream was earmarked for ten major urban centres, the remaining 20 percent was reserved for smaller municipalities that were “able to demonstrate a homelessness problem,” with the federal and the provincial or territorial government jointly responsible for choosing the eligible communities (3). Fifty-one such municipalities were identified (among them the four small cities examined in this chapter), so evidently quite a few communities had no trouble demonstrating that homelessness had become problem.

A second phase of the NHI, announced in November 2005, extended these partnerships until 2007 and renewed federal funding (Canada, HRSDC 2008, i). Although one of the long-term goals of the NHI was “to develop a comprehensive continuum of supports to help homeless Canadians move out of the cycle of homelessness and prevent those at-risk from falling into homelessness” (i), the problem remained that the federal government had made no similarly long-term commitment to funding—a situation not lost on community partners. As the authors of Home for Good: Kelowna’s Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness observed in 2009, the “duration of funding for these programs has been limited to only two to three years at a time,” adding that the “lack of predictability and sustainability has led to uncertainty and inefficiency in delivering an adequate response to the homelessness crisis” (Sundberg et al. 2009, 7). In addition, according to a summative evaluation of the NHI, even though community partners reported a number of positive outcomes, they also pointed to an important area in which the program fell short:

Despite the progress that has been made as a result of the NHI, most communities identified gaps in their continuum of supports and services, particularly in the area of affordable housing. Although not within the mandate of the NHI, the continued gap in availability of independent, affordable housing at the final stage of the continuum was identified by evaluation respondents as having a detrimental impact on establishing the overall continuum of supports and services. (Canada, HRSDC 2008, v)

In other words, many of the individuals who otherwise benefited from NHI funding probably ended up back on the streets.

Following the election of the Conservatives to power in 2006, the NHI was replaced by the Homelessness Partnering Strategy (HPS). Announced in December 2006, the HPS went into effect in April 2007 and was initially funded for two years, at $134.8 million per year (Canada, HRSDC 2009, vii)—a substantial decrease from the NHI’s original budget of $251 million per year. Funding was subsequently extended until 2014 and then renewed again from 2014 to 2019, although at a decreased level of $119 million annually (Canada 2013, 10). Like the NHI, the HPS comprises a number of different components. In one funding stream, it continues to target the same sixty-one “designated communities,” while another is devoted to Aboriginal communities. Originally described as a “community-based program that relies on communities to determine their own needs and develop appropriate projects,” the HPS is in many respects a reworked version of the NHI.3 Designated communities continue to be required to draw up a community plan, developed by a Community Advisory Board, and federal funding remains contingent on the provision of matching funds by the community partner.

Perhaps the chief difference between the NHI and the HPS lies in the latter’s emphasis on sustainable solutions—no doubt a response, in part, to criticisms of the NHI. In the words of Employment and Social Development Canada, the HPS “works to enhance partnerships to find longer-term solutions to homelessness, strengthen community capacity and build sustainability.”4 Similarly, according to the program’s Terms and Conditions, the HPS has, from the start, “been encouraging communities to adopt a more mature approach to homelessness and has supported them in shifting away from emergency responses and focussing instead on longer-term solutions.”5 These priorities are reflected in the criteria for a successful community plan, which must:

• identify gaps for addressing homelessness issues in a particular region;
• identify long-term solutions to address homelessness and how the community intends to continue these activities; and
• demonstrate that other partners will provide at least $1 for every dollar of Homelessness Partnering Strategy funding.6

In short, despite its own preference for short-term commitments to funding (and in ever dwindling amounts), in developing the HPS, the federal government was still looking to municipalities to take the lead in devising long-term solutions.

On the whole, the provinces—with the possible exception of Alberta, which, in October 2008, unveiled an ambitious ten-year plan to end homelessness in the province by 2019, at a projected cost of roughly $3.3 billion—have seemed content to collaborate in this shift of responsibility onto local governments.7 In the fall of 2006, shortly before the HPS was announced, the BC government launched its own housing strategy, Housing Matters BC, which provoked some consternation at the local level. In a 2008 policy paper, the Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) captured the sense of ambiguity and lack of clear direction: “There appears in British Columbia the expectation at the provincial level that local governments should take on greater responsibility for affordable housing and homelessness, although there have been no discussions with local government on the nature of these new responsibilities or the tacit meaning of this shift in duties in the future” (UBCM 2008, 3).

Adding to this atmosphere of confusion was the uncertain status of federal funding for affordable housing. In 2001, Chrétien’s government had introduced the Affordable Housing Initiative, a collaborative arrangement between Ottawa and the provinces and territories implemented through the Framework for Bilateral Agreements Aimed at Affordable Housing. In 2008, the federal government, now under the leadership of Conservative Stephen Harper, announced a five-year investment of more than $1.9 billion ($387.9 million annually) in housing and homelessness initiatives. This included a two-year renewal of the Affordable Housing Initiative, through to the end of March 2011, with the recipients required to match the federal funds allocated to them (CMHC 2009, 1). As the period drew to a close, disagreements arose about the framework under which funding would continue, and only in mid-2011 was the situation resolved. Under the new Investment in Affordable Housing program, Ottawa would maintain its existing transfers to provinces ($238.7 million annually), who would be responsible for matching the amount of their allocation. In doing so, however, provinces were not obliged to draw directly on their own treasuries but were free to turn for help to private-sector donors, such as charities—and/or to local municipalities (Scoffield 2011). As Michael Shapcott, director of research on affordable housing at Toronto’s Wellesley Institute, observed, the agreement was “full of general statements” and failed to set any specific goals or targets (quoted in Scoffield 2011). It also invited provinces to further offload financial burdens onto local communities.

As this history of housing policy in Canada indicates, the ambiguities surrounding jurisdictional authority in matters of housing have conspired to allow the federal government first to step into a more active role in housing policy and then to step away from that role as money tightened. In the face of declining federal support, cash-strapped provinces chose to follow suit, cutting their own funding for housing initiatives and other social programs and looking both to the private sector and to local municipalities to make up the difference. The fight against homelessness thus increasingly became a local responsibility, with the federal and provincial governments retreating into a supporting role, declining to assume any serious responsibility for confronting the complex economic issues that give rise to homelessness or the equally complex social and moral issues that surround it. Within this context of political disengagement, small cities have been charged with finding their own solutions.

Homelessness in Context: The Small-City Predicament

The evident federal-provincial consensus that municipalities should take the lead in addressing homelessness brings to the fore numerous disparities in resources and capacities, both from province to province and among municipalities within provinces. As we have seen, in comparison to larger urban centres, small cities must already contend with more limited financial resources, as well as with a relative lack of experience in social planning. Small cities also tend to have a smaller supply of existing housing stock, and, simply by virtue of their scale, their neighbourhoods tend to abut one another, with little by way of buffer zones. Moreover, the very economic forces that have produced homelessness have taken an especially heavy toll on the ability of small cities to respond to the crisis.

Throughout the 1990s and into this century, small cities have had to grapple with escalating costs and the decay of traditional industries that once provided an economic base, coupled with budget cuts at the provincial level. Not only have small cities struggled to maintain core municipal services and meet basic infrastructure needs, but, in response to both global economic restructuring and declining provincial support, municipalities have had to focus more aggressively on local economic growth. The need to develop new revenues streams has required small cities to direct scarce resources into marketing efforts, such as branding, that aim at self-promotion, in hopes of attracting new businesses and residents (especially relatively affluent professionals) and gaining a stronger foothold in tourism and convention markets. This, in turn, has entailed building or enhancing local recreational, cultural, and sporting venues and revitalizing downtown cores, in an attempt to compete with other municipalities that are pursuing much the same strategies.

Given that, in a municipal context, annual budgets and proposed property tax increases are subject to far broader public consultation and scrutiny than is the case at higher levels of government, large expenditures associated with the need to address social issues can be hard to justify or sustain (Haddow 2002, 102). This is particularly true if such expenditures come at the expense of other public services or improvements to infrastructure. Whereas spending on measures designed to promote economic growth can be justified in terms of benefits to the community as whole, social spending serves a “powerless minority” (102). Thus, as Barbara Carroll (2002, 85) argues, “the inertia of the federal and provincial governments and the passing of responsibility for housing to municipalities leaves this area in the hands of the level of government least able to withstand the private pressures against social intervention and with a tax base which cannot be expanded in the event of economic downturn.” In addition, whatever benefits might accrue from the development of innovative social programs tailored to serve local needs, such efforts could easily be thwarted by broader economic pressures and public resistance.

The reluctance of local governments to pursue homelessness initiatives also reflects the jurisdictional scope and power of such governments. Municipalities can take steps to address the most urgent needs of the homeless, for food, medical attention, and shelter from the elements, but solutions to the problem of homelessness ultimately rest on broader policies pertaining to housing and income assistance over which municipal governments have little or no control. While the existing framework of legal, health, and social services may be costly and ineffective in reducing homelessness, from a municipal perspective, the principal responsibility for creating and implementing that framework falls on the federal and provincial governments. It is not surprising, then, that in a UBCM survey conducted in 2008, municipal governments identified the “need for financial assistance from the federal and provincial governments” as one of the foremost barriers to local action, along with a lack of local capacity (“staffing resources and expertise”) and inadequate leadership from higher levels of government—the fact that municipalities require “federal and provincial direction to make major changes in the local community” (UBCM 2008, 13). It is unrealistic to imagine that municipalities can address pervasive and deeply embedded social problems on their own.

With regard to housing and local demographics, small cities tend to differ in certain respects from larger urban centres. As Carroll (1990, 100) points out,

Large cities have higher housing costs and a relatively larger rental stock. At the same time, they act as a magnet for single individuals who require short-term low-cost housing. Smaller centres, on the other hand, have a relatively greater proportion of senior citizens and families who require affordable housing in markets where rental accommodation is less common and home ownership the norm.

The 2016 census revealed the largest increase in the proportion of Canadians aged sixty-five or over in the country’s history, with the figure now standing at 16.9 percent of the total population. At the same time, fewer Canadians now live in single-family dwellings—“the result of declining affordability and older people moving into smaller living spaces” (Grant and Agius 2017). As the population continues to age, the pressure on smaller cities is likely to grow, as older Canadians seek affordable housing in their retirement years. Perhaps this is all the more so in British Columbia, a province attractive to retirees.

With respect to the provision of housing, small cities are again at a disadvantage in comparison to relatively large urban centres. The small cities of today were only towns in the early postwar years, when the federal government financed the construction of public housing on publicly owned land. Because these projects generally focused on low-income populations in Canada’s largest urban areas, small cities now find themselves without an equivalent stock of public lands and housing. In addition, during the postwar boom, these towns never attracted the private investment that enabled the construction of downtown office buildings, rooming houses, and hotels, which today can be purchased by city governments and renovated (or torn down and rebuilt) in order to provide housing for the homeless and others in need. Of course, smaller cities do have older neighbourhoods, but their original downtown core is often relatively compact, with retail areas dispersed in response to the construction of residential housing developments towards the outskirts of the city.

Indeed, over the past thirty years or so, the housing dynamic in small cities has tended to replicate the pattern seen in Canada’s largest centres during the postwar period. New suburban housing for middle- and upper-income families continues to be built, with low-income owners and renters generally forced to rely on an older stock of housing located in and around the downtown core. However, as has also occurred in larger cities, a process of gentrification, or so-called urban renewal, has set in, with this older stock of housing undergoing redevelopment into commercial and professional establishments, as well as high-end condominiums and other upscale housing. Indeed, local governments often encourage such redevelopment by offering certain incentives, in an effort to alter the demographics of downtown areas and to revive the economic prospects of local businesses, whose customers have been lured away by big-box retailers located on the fringes of town (MacKinnon and Nelson 2005, 40–42; Sailor 2010, 123–28).

This growth and redevelopment began at a time when federal or provincial support for the construction of low-income housing had all but evaporated. As a result, affordable housing quickly grew scarce, causing rents to spiral upwards and vacancy rates to plummet. In addition, competition for what rental accommodation existed became fierce. In Kamloops, for example, the vacancy rate for rental units dropped from 7.8% in 2000 to a mere 0.4% in 2008, climbing slightly to 1.5% in 2009 and then 2.6% in 2010.8 Such a tight rental market is especially unfriendly to low-income earners and those on social assistance, many of whom are also members of ethnic minorities. For one thing, it allows landlords to favour those they regard (for whatever reason) as the more desirable tenants. Moreover, as of 2017, the maximum allowance for shelter for a single individual living on social assistance was $375 per month, whereas the average rent for a bachelor unit, in all four cities, was over $600 per month, with rates in Kelowna rising to $859 by 2017 (SPARC BC 2011, 45; CMHC 2017, 8; see also HAP Steering Committee 2010, 15). Needless to say, such circumstances are a recipe for homelessness.

As homeless populations grew, community organizations began to undertake homeless counts, in an effort not merely to provide rough estimates of numbers but also to gather basic demographic information. A research report released in 2011 by the Social Planning and Research Council of British Columbia (SPARC BC) included information gathered from the most recent counts of the visible homeless (that is, people on the streets and in shelters) in our four cities. These data indicated that the majority of the visible homeless were men—anywhere from 61% (in Kelowna) to 77% (in Kamloops). As the counts also revealed, Indigenous individuals made up a highly disproportionate share of the homeless population, accounting for 24% of the homeless in Kelowna (versus 3.8% of the total municipal population), 29% in Kamloops (versus 6.4%), 36% in Nanaimo (versus 5.2%), and 66% in Prince George (versus 11.3%) (SPARC BC 2011, 20). All in all, the total counts ranged from 103 (in Kamloops) to 361 (in Prince George). While these numbers are significant, they might not seem the stuff of crisis, at least in terms of the need for housing and support services. Once we factor in the hidden homeless, however—that is, people who have no home but are temporarily residing in some other form of accommodation—we are better able to grasp the magnitude of the problem (see table 1.1).

Table 1.1 Estimates of total homeless population

a Counts were taken in October 2010 in Nanaimo, in May 2010 in Prince George, in September 2008 in Nanaimo, and April 2007 in Kelowna. While these counts generally took place within a brief period (such as a day), the precise methods varied. For details, see SPARC BC (2011, 11–15).

b Estimates of the hidden homeless derive from telephone surveys of 1,000 households in each of the communities: see SPARC BC (2011, 3–6). Ranges represent a 95% confidence interval (64). In other words, if surveys were taken repeatedly, the results would fall within this range 95% of the time.

c The total of 302, which was obtained in another count, may be the more accurate, as this count was conducted over a period of three months (June to August 2008). See SPARC BC (2011, 14).

Source: SPARC BC (2011, 19, 23).

In an effort to develop a clearer understanding of the dynamics of homelessness, the SPARC BC researchers conducted a survey of households presently providing shelter to homeless individuals, supplemented by interviews with local service providers and with individuals who were currently among the hidden homeless or had recently been so.9 Most of the homeless (80%) reported staying in the house or apartment of friends or acquaintances, rather than with relatives, usually sleeping on a couch in the living room or sometimes in a spare bedroom or a garage. The length of the stay was generally somewhere between one to three months, but a quarter (26%) reported stays of less than a week (SPARC BC 2011, 45). Indeed, 70% indicated that they had spent “less time at their temporary home than they had anticipated” and “either chose or were forced to leave before they were ready to go” (49). In addition to “couch surfing,” other living arrangements included camping, short-term rentals, and/or sleeping in the streets. Nearly two-thirds (64%) had stayed in emergency shelters or transition housing within the past year (45).

A majority of those interviewed (56%) were somewhere in the range of twenty-five to forty-five years of age (SPARC BC 2011, 46). More than 65% reported having mental health challenges, a figure that stands in stark contrast to the Canadian population overall, in which the rate of serious mental health problems is estimated to be about 20%.10 In addition, roughly 52% indicated that they struggled with substance use, while 48% had physical disabilities of some sort—and close to a quarter (22%) reporting facing all three challenges (56). Most were unemployed, and nearly three-quarters (74%) were receiving social assistance and/or provincial disability benefits—so these individuals were not entirely outside the system. Moreover, 82% reported having made use of community or government services over the past year in an effort to find their own place (45). As the SPARC BC researchers noted, roughly a third (34%) of those providing temporary accommodation to homeless individuals were in precarious financial circumstances themselves, spending upwards of 30% of their income on housing, and, notably in Kelowna and Prince George, a significant proportion of hosts were senior citizens.

Not surprisingly, the vast majority of the hidden homeless identified low income and the lack of affordable housing as the most significant barriers preventing them securing a permanent address (51). These two factors were also identified by the service providers interviewed, who further pointed to “inadequate services and/or strict criteria for government support” as major obstacles among the hidden homeless (56). It also became clear that a very permeable boundary exists between the hidden homeless and the visible homeless. To remain “hidden,” the homeless rely largely on people they know, whose ability and willingness to provide temporary accommodation are often limited: at some point, their guests must move on—possibly into the street.

Shouldering the Burden: Municipal Responses to Homelessness

During the early 2000s, the need to cope with growing numbers of homeless swiftly became the dominant social planning issue in many small cities, including the four we studied, in some cases constituting the main reason that city councils chose to fund the creation of a permanent social planning position. In the face of what was perceived as a mounting crisis, initial municipal responses generally focused on relatively short-term measures, such as emergency shelters, that aimed at getting people off the streets (if only temporarily). Eventually, though, all four cities developed homelessness plans that adopted a more comprehensive perspective, one that viewed homelessness as a symptom of underlying problems.11 As these plans recognized, sustainable solutions to homelessness would require an ongoing municipal commitment to increasing the supply of affordable housing, notably through the development of new low-income rental suites and the construction of mixed-income housing. In addition to the centralization of housing information and referral services, concrete initiatives included offering financial incentives to developers for building affordable housing and to homeowners willing to create secondary suites, as well as meetings with landlords to encourage rent reductions for low-income tenants. Local governments also coordinated with community organizations to advocate at the provincial and/or federal levels for the funding needed to carry out specific projects.

Plans for actions are, of course, one thing; implementation is another. Perhaps the most valuable insights into the dynamics of municipal efforts to address homelessness were provided by the social planners we interviewed.12 As was apparent from these interviews, local initiatives had met with some success, at least in meeting the most immediate needs of the homeless. Planners pointed to increases in the number of shelter beds and spaces in transitional housing, as well as to improvements in support services. In addition, one had noted a growing willingness to “assist and support” panhandlers, which had contributed to a striking decrease in their numbers over the course of one summer. “Part of that,” she said, “was just the people around the table acknowledging that there’s a human aspect to the issues that someone is facing.” At the same time, it was clear that measures to address homelessness had to contend with local anxieties and tensions. “We tend to get more concern for people who perceive their safety to be compromised by the homeless people downtown,” another planner remarked. He went on to say that visible homelessness is “also an issue for downtown businesses,” given the prevailing perception that the presence of the homeless is “jeopardizing our ability to market the downtown core to potential businesses.”

Concerns voiced by local residents were by no means the only obstacles that social planners had to confront in attempting to implement specific initiatives. City councils were often reluctant to fund measures to address homelessness, interpreting them as yet another example of the shift of federal and provincial responsibilities onto municipalities. Arguments about downloading could, at times, serve as an excuse for inaction on the part of city council, even though the larger community might be in favour of moving forward on the homelessness front. As one planner put it,

We know that if we have homelessness and it’s an issue in our community, and local government wants to do something, how you do that is you support housing. And in every other municipality that has been successful with the provincial government in terms of acquiring funding, they’ve brought something to the table, and I think it’s the way it’s happening right now. . . . So I find it very frustrating when I hear that argument at council, because to me, that’s more of an argument for not wanting to do anything.

He went on to point out that the reluctance of city council to take action often stood “in opposition to what the community told us [about] how they view their community,” with the result that council members seemed to be “out of step with the electorate.” As another planner observed, however, municipal concerns over downloading were far from unjustified:

We have a council now that’s much more forward thinking and receptive to what they can do to make a difference, but they’ve always been sensitive to the downloading, and BC is particularly bad for pointing at local government and saying, “You should be doing X,” but not providing any further resources so that you can actually do X. That’s been a problem.

In short, small-city councils grappling with limited revenues have good reason to be cautious, and yet even when a city council has the best of intentions, this wariness can itself become an obstacle, serving to put a brake on progress.

Quite apart from the possible need to convince city councils to move into action, social planners must overcome other hurdles in order to implement homelessness action plans. Perhaps the most common problem is the NIMBY (“not in my backyard”) reaction, which tends to rear its head as proposals—for the provision of support services in a particular neighbourhood, for example, or for the construction of transitional or affordable housing—become more concrete. In the face of opposition from local residents or business associations, city council may be inclined to retreat from implementation, which often requires planners to keep revisiting previously agreed-upon plans. One social planner explained that, when city council shows signs of getting cold feet, he tells them:

“Well this is where it’s led us to. You know you’re going to have to accept that this is the outcome. If you didn’t want to get us here, then you shouldn’t have adopted the document.” So that’s sort of the way I do it, I get them to agree to the broad principles, and then when it gets uncomfortable, I say, “You know we agreed on the principles. You knew it was going to get uncomfortable when it got to the particulars.” . . . And most of the time they’ll choose to stick to their principles.

While such tactics are part and parcel of local politics, the need to engage in them is perhaps an underappreciated aspect of the downloading phenomenon. The provincial or federal authorities who formulate policies that municipalities are called upon to implement are spared the trouble of figuring out how to overcome local resistance—which tends to arise especially when these communities are also obliged to cover much of the cost.

In addition, even when detailed plans are in place, changes in council membership as the result of local elections can easily shift priorities and bring about delays. Such changes can, in turn, have a substantial impact on the extent to which civic officials are prepared to lobby the provincial government regarding funding for homelessness initiatives. Recalling a meeting of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities, one social planner commented:

Our senior management staff sat down with the premier and with BC Housing people . . . and said, “Look, we have a huge problem with homelessness and very little resources to deal with it. We need it to be a priority.” And shortly after that, they announced the Premier’s Task Force on Homelessness and Mental Health. And, in fact, we did get significant results.

As another planner put it, “I can’t open doors the way the mayor can.” Having a supportive mayor who is both able and willing to foster local-provincial links thus appears to be a crucial factor in leveraging action from above.

In all four cities studied, social planners, often working in concert with community groups and service providers, have played a critical role in advocating for and advancing measures aimed at reducing homelessness. At the same time, a number of constraints operate at the local level that can hinder the smooth progression from initial plans to completed projects. These constraints are not fixed: rather, they vary from one place to another, in terms of their nature as well as their severity. As a result, significant inequities exist among municipalities with respect to the implementation of strategies to end homelessness—inequities that directly affect the fortunes of local homeless populations. In 2002, for example, a review of the Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative noted that “not every community has the depth of corporate or other support to fund homelessness initiatives,” while some communities “simply do not have adequate local resources to match funds” (Public Policy Forum 2002, 17). In short, some communities are better equipped than others to respond to demands on the part of higher levels of government for local solutions—devised, implemented, and to a significant extent funded by community “partners.” Such demands are already well entrenched, but, in the face of renewed policies of federal and/or provincial restraint, inequities among communities could become even more pronounced.

Conclusion

As we saw earlier, in 2013, the federal government renewed funding for the Homelessness Partnering Strategy for an additional five years, from 2014 to 2019. In its renewed form, the HPS placed an especially firm emphasis on Housing First strategies, mandating that, by the beginning of April 2016, designated communities (exclusive of the ten major cities) receiving allocations of $200,000 or more must be spending at least 40 percent of that allocation on Housing First initiatives (Foran and Guibert 2013, 7). The HPS currently aims for “a balanced approach,” one that “ensures that communities adopt Housing First as a cornerstone of their plan to address homelessness, yet retain some flexibility to invest in other proven approaches that complement Housing First and reduce homelessness at the local level.”13

As a philosophy, Housing First recognizes that little can be accomplished by way of addressing the physical and psychological needs of the homeless unless they are first securely housed, at which point they can be provided with the necessary health and support services. The government’s commitment to Housing First approaches is founded in large measure on the findings from a federally funded multi-year study of mental health and homelessness conducted by the Mental Health Commission of Canada.14 The study, At Home/Chez Soi—carried out from 2009 to 2013 in five major cities—sought to evaluate the effectiveness, in terms of both costs and benefits, of a Housing First strategy employed among people with mental illness. The final report, released in April 2014, concluded that the Housing First approach “rapidly ends homelessness” and “can be effectively implemented in Canadian cities of different size and different ethnoracial and cultural composition” (Goering et al. 2014, 5). It also provided evidence that Housing First is a “sound investment,” noting that “every $10 invested in HF services resulted in an average savings of $21.72” over the two-year period immediately following the entry of participants into the program (5).15

The strong endorsement of a Housing First strategy by the federal government represents a significant advance towards a long-term solution to homelessness—although, given the relatively recent embrace of this strategy, it is a little too early to judge its cumulative impact. At the same time, the effectiveness of the “partnership” model in which this strategy is currently embedded is open to question. As we have seen, the level of government that is called upon to take the lead in the struggle to end homelessness is also the most impoverished level of government, not only from the standpoint of financial resources but also in terms of human capacity. Moreover, while an emphasis on local needs and circumstances rightly acknowledges that no two communities are alike, for that very reason individual community efforts are bound to be uneven. They are also unlikely to add up to a coordinated plan. As a recent study of ten-year homelessness plans concluded, “the existing patchwork of federal and provincial programs and modest, short-term funding envelopes needs to be replaced with a comprehensive and well-integrated national plan,” one that “dedicates new, long-term public funding at the levels required to reduce, and ultimately end, homelessness in Canada” (Adamo et al. 2016, 10).

As we write, it might seem that a significant step has been taken in this direction. In its March 2017 budget, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau committed $11.2 billion over eleven years to the implementation of a new National Housing Strategy. Included in this figure is a total of $2.1 billion for the HPS, which represents an increase in its annual budget from $118 million to an average of $191 million. In addition, the strategy invests a total of $5 billion over the next eleven years in a newly established National Housing Fund, intended to address critical housing needs, especially among the country’s most vulnerable populations (see Canada 2017a, 132–37). Significantly, this fund, which will be administered through the CMHC, includes an Affordable Rental Housing Financing Initiative designed to provide municipalities and other housing partners with “sustained and improved access to low-cost loans for the repair and renewal of housing units, as well as for the construction of new affordable housing” (134). The government also reiterated its commitment to working with provincial and territorial governments, announcing its intention to provide a total of $3.2 billion through “a new, expanded, multilateral investment framework that will replace the existing Investment in Affordable Housing initiative” (133).

After decades of federal withdrawal from the housing arena, the new National Housing Strategy (Canada 2017b) signals a welcome shift in the overall direction of federal policy. As Greg Suttor (2017), an analyst at Toronto’s Wellesley Institute, was quick to note, the National Housing Fund, with its restoration of loan financing, will be the first major housing program since the 1970s to be run by the federal government. At the same time, concerns have been raised about whether the investment is truly adequate. Suttor (2017) deemed the figure of roughly $1 billion a year for current initiatives a “modest rise” over annual funding levels of the past fifteen years. Indeed, the figure of $11.2 billion over eleven years falls considerably short of the $43.788 billion over ten years that the authors of The State of Homelessness in Canada 2016 estimated would be necessary to end homelessness in Canada (Gaetz et al. 2016, 7). Nor does the new National Housing Strategy incorporate another of the key recommendations of this report—a National Housing Benefit, intended to prevent low-income households from losing their housing (Gaetz et al. 2016, 72–73; see also Canadian Observatory on Homelessness 2017). It is, moreover, impossible to say at this point whether the National Housing Fund, the increase in funding to the HPS, and the “expanded, multilateral investment framework” will significantly lessen the financial burden on local governments.

The fact remains that, despite the best efforts of social planners, community organizations, and local service providers, municipal homelessness initiatives will continue to be derailed by NIMBYism and other forms of civic complaint. City council members, easily swayed by the prospect of lost votes, can also be stubbornly resistant to what they perceive (often quite accurately) as federal or provincial attempts to download social and fiscal responsibility onto the local level. In addition, substantive progress on the homelessness front can all too easily be sidetracked or even stalled by election outcomes and other shifts in local political alignments. Small cities do not lack for hard-working, committed individuals who have considerable experience with social issues. But these individuals necessarily operate in a complex and highly dynamic, even volatile, context, and they often have limited power. If ending homelessness truly is a priority in Canada, the federal government must provide local officials with a clear mandate, and federal and provincial administrations must assume responsibility for ensuring that municipalities have the resources—both human and financial—necessary to achieve these goals.

Perhaps above all, both the federal and provincial governments must come to recognize that the problem of homelessness did not arise out of thin air. In Canada, as elsewhere, homelessness is a consequence of broader economic policies, policies that have dramatically heightened income disparities and rendered employment precarious. Arguably, in the absence of a shift in our underlying philosophy of governance, we will have little choice but to spend billions of dollars in an effort to remedy problems produced, at least in part, by a faltering of our collective commitment to social and economic justice. Unless we are willing to call our current priorities into question, the homeless will continue to be visible “in our parks, on our streets, and in our alleys,” while the hidden homeless remain out of sight, together with those who are, through no fault of their own, living on the edge.

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1 A recent study of homelessness initiatives in four major Canadian cities—Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver—found, for example, that these cities had failed to achieve “sustained reductions in the number of individuals and families experiencing homelessness every year.” Indeed, evidence suggests that, in some cities, “homelessness is growing among certain sub-populations, including families, youth and seniors” (Adamo et al. 2016, 3).

2 Officially founded on 1 January 1946 and originally named the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the CMHC was created to administer the National Housing Act, as well as the earlier Home Improvement Loans Guarantee Act. The National Housing Act of 1938, which had been redrafted in 1944, was further amended in 1948 and 1949, partly with the goal of encouraging the construction of low-income housing. For additional discussion, see Layton (2008, 242–47).

3 “Canada—National Strategies to Address Homelessness,” The Homeless Hub, 2017, http://homelesshub.ca/solutions/national-strategies/canada. This was the federal government’s original description. For current information, see “Homelessness Partnering Strategy,” Employment and Social Development Canada, 28 November 2016, https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/communities/homelessness.html.

4 “Understanding Homelessness and the Strategy,” Employment and Social Development Canada, 23 August 2016, https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/communities/homelessness/understanding.html (see “About the Homelessness Partnering Strategy”).

5 “Terms and Conditions of the Homelessness Partnering Strategy,” Employment and Social Development Canada, 12 September 2016, https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/funding/homeless/homeless-terms-conditions.htm (see “Introduction”).

6 “Funding: Regional Projects—Designated Communities,” Employment and Social Development Canada, 22 September 2016, https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/funding/homeless/homeless-designated-communities.html.

7 See Alberta, Alberta Secretariat for Action on Homelessness (2008). With regard to the projected cost, the plan rightly emphasized that creating permanent housing for the homeless is ultimately far less expensive than continuing to “manage” the problem (9). At the same time, Alberta is fundamentally a wealthy province (despite its current budget shortfall), and it is probably no coincidence that, at the time the plan was announced, oil prices were reaching record highs. Inevitably, prices fell, as did spending on social housing (see CBC News 2015), and, as 2019 swiftly approaches, it has become clear that the original goal will not be met.

8 Jeremy Deutsch, “Vacancy Rate Rises Slightly in Kamloops in 2010 Compared to 2009” (blog), Kamloops Real Estate Blog, 15 December 2010, http://www.kamloopsrealestateblog.com/vacancy-rate-rises-slightly-kamloops-2010-compared-2009/.

9 A total of fifty hidden homeless were interviewed, ten from each of the five participating communities (Kamloops, Kelowna, Nanaimo, Nelson, and Prince George). The household survey and interviews with service providers were conducted via telephone; the interviews with the hidden homeless took place face-to-face. For details on methodology, see SPARC BC (2011, 4–10). Among the hidden homeless interviewed, women slightly outnumbered men, although, as the report notes, the gender distribution reflects the fact that the ten interviewees from Nanaimo were all women (iii, 46).

10 “Facts About Mental Illness,” Canadian Mental Health Association, 2017, http://www.cmha.ca/media/fast-facts-about-mental-illness/. This figure was also reported by the SPARC BC researchers (2011, 56).

11 Nanaimo and Kelowna engaged consultants to conduct research and draw up plans for action: for Nanaimo, see the two reports prepared by City Spaces Consulting (CSC 2008a, 2008b), and, for Kelowna, Home for Good: Kelowna’s Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness (Sundberg et al. 2009). In Kamloops, the Homelessness Action Plan Steering Committee produced Kamloops Homelessness Action Plan 2010 (HAP Steering Committee 2010), while the City of Prince George developed My PG: An Integrated Community Sustainability Plan for Prince George (Prince George 2010).

12 Semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2010 and 2011 with social planners from Kamloops, Kelowna, Prince George, and Nanaimo, as well as Vancouver and Victoria. These interviews are the source of the quotations that follow.

13 “Terms and Conditions of the Homelessness Partnering Strategy,” Employment and Social Development Canada, 12 September 2016, https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/funding/homeless/homeless-terms-conditions.html (see “Introduction”).

14 “Understanding Homelessness and the Strategy,” Employment and Social Development Canada, 23 August 2016, https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/communities/homelessness/understanding.html#s1 (see “Housing First”).

15 The savings were especially significant for individuals deemed to have high needs: an average of $9.60 for every $10 invested. Among those with moderate needs, the savings were $3.42 per $10 invested. For more information, see “Initiatives: At Home,” Mental Health Commission of Canada, 2017, http://img.mhcc.ca/English/initiatives-and-projects/home?page=2&terminitial=39.