Canada’s homelessness crisis: What’s gone wrong since the 1960s?

The homelessness crisis

As of December 2023, York University’s research group the Homeless Hub estimated that between 150,000 and 300,000 people experience homelessness in Canada each year, although the high incidence of people experiencing hidden homelessness — in other words, people who find temporary housing and unstable housing situations, such as couch surfing — makes it hard to quantify. At least 35,000 people in Canada are experiencing homelessness on any given night.

HelpSeeker, a technology research company that focuses on social issues, applied an artificial intelligence model to data gathered by municipal governments on topics like shelter usage to estimate that the number of people experiencing homelessness will almost double by 2030. This estimate includes a large proportion of people who will experience hidden homelessness.

https://thevarsity.ca/2024/01/28/canadas-homelessness-crisis-whats-gone-wrong-since-the-1960s/

When homelessness and mental illness overlap, is forced treatment compassionate?

Many of Portland's least fortunate live in tents pitched on sidewalks or in aging campers parked in small convoys behind grocery stores.

High housing costs and financial adversity are the primary root causes behind the burgeoning population on the streets; only about one in three people who are homeless in Portland report having a mental illness or a substance use disorder, or both.

But the combination of homelessness with substance use or untreated mental illnesses has led to a lot of very public tragedies.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/31/1164281917/when-homelessness-and-mental-illness-overlap-is-compulsory-treatment-compassiona

Nanaimo mayor calls for homeless people with severe mental illnesses to be institutionalized

The mayor of Nanaimo, B.C., wants the province to institutionalize severely mentally ill people who are homeless and often addicted to alcohol and illegal substances.

Leonard Krog said the government's construction of modular homes that replaced a bulldozed tent city is helping but those suffering from mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia, need specialized care.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/nanaimo-mayor-calls-for-homeless-people-with-severe-mental-illnesses-to-be-institutionalized-1.4730080

B.C. looking into changing how encampments are dismantled

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/11/06/bc-homeless-encampment-dismantling/

San Francisco Squalor: City Streets Strewn With Trash, Needles And Human Feces

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/01/634626538/san-francisco-squalor-city-streets-strewn-with-trash-needles-and-human-feces

San Francisco can now enforce laws relating to homeless sweeps following court rulings

San Francisco will now be able to cite and arrest unhoused people if they reject services as the city looks to ramp up enforcement of encampment sweeps.

https://abc7news.com/post/san-francisco-begin-homeless-sweeps-following-supreme-court/15044577/