Canada’s history of residential schools

Canada’s history of residential schools

by | Aug 1, 2020 | Aboriginal Peoples, Canada, Determinants of Homelessness, Government, Government Funding, Homeless, Indigenous peoples, Policy, Social Policy

Canada’s history of residential schools

When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages…He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed upon myself…that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in…schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.

— John A. Macdonald (Canada’s First Prime Minister)

 

I recently had the chance to read the Volume 1 summary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which discusses Canada’s history with residential schools.[1]

Here are 10 things to know.

1. Residential schools were part of a deliberate policy to assimilate Indigenous peoples against their will. Such schools existed in Canada for over a century, with federal support for them beginning in in the 1880s (peak enrolment was reached in the late 1950s). Federal officials hoped that students who went to these schools would stop feeling connected to their culture and would sever ties with their families and communities. Canada’s federal government used such schools to gain control over land and resources of Indigenous peoples.

2. Initially, attendance was voluntary; but this soon changed. It is also very important to bear in mind that many reserves did not have schools of their own, meaning that Indigenous people typically had no alternative to residential schools.

3. Residential schools were funded by the federal government, but administered by churches. The major religious denominations that administered Canada’s residential schools were: Roman Catholic, Anglican, United, Methodist, and Presbyterian. The Roman Catholic Church ran more of these schools than any other denomination. Most of the staff were recruited by the church. Each school’s principal was typically a priest or minister (as opposed to an educator). Staff were disproportionately women, many worked for free, and many worked seven-day weeks. Turnover was high—it was common for a staff person to work for a residential school for no more than two years before moving on to another job.

4. Residential schools were profoundly disruptive to families. Some students were sent to schools located several thousand kilometres from their communities; some went several years without seeing their parents. Siblings attending the same school were separated from each other.

5. Students were not allowed to speak Indigenous languages in residential schools. Often, they were physically punished when they tried. When students returned home, it was challenging for them to communicate with their parents, as well as discuss the abuse to which they were subjected in school. Only English—and French, to a lesser extent—were allowed to be spoken in residential schools.

6. Residential schools were woefully underfunded and used students as child labour. Prior to the early-1950s, students typically spent half the day in class, and the other half of the day working (e.g., growing much of the food they ate, fixing their own clothing). Not surprisingly, this resulted in a considerable number of workplace accidents (e.g., hands being caught in equipment). It also meant that students did not receive the same quality education as students in Canada’s mainstream schools.

7. Students at residential schools faced many forms of abuse. Students who wet their beds were often subjected to organized forms of public humiliation. One TRC witness testified that staff would line up the bedwetters and parade them through the dining hall at breakfast time in order to shame them. Sometimes students were forced to eat their own vomit.[2] One school even built its own electric chair. As is now well known, sexual abuse of Indigenous children was all too commonplace in the schools.

8. Not surprisingly, students often ran away from residential schools. Chanie Wenjack was an Anishinaabe boy who died in 1966 while trying to return home after escaping from a residential school. His story is now the subject of a multimedia art project, the centrepiece of which is Secret Path (the last studio album ever released by Gord Downie). And Trent University has the Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies. Hundreds of others ran away and died, and thousands died at school.

9. Parents often fought back. Sometimes they refused to enrol their students; sometimes they refused to return their children after they had run away from school and come home (or after summer holidays). Sometimes these tactics were effective, forcing some schools to close. Having said that, parents often faced legal sanctions (e.g., jail time) for employing such tactics. Parents also advocated for better conditions pertaining to pedagogy, food and clothing.

10. Beginning in the late 1940s, mainstream thought in Canada began to shift. Increasingly, public officials began to encourage the integration of First Nations students into the public school system. By 1960, more First Nations students were attending public schools than residential schools.

In closing.  In the late-1960s, the federal government began to take control of residential schools away from churches. It then began to close them, with the last one closing in 1996. As of 2005, more than 18,000 lawsuits had been filed by residential school survivors against the federal government, churches and individuals. Despite the work of the TRC and the financial compensation, many Indigenous people are still experiencing intergenerational trauma from the experience of residential schools. The implications for homelessness have been studied extensively by Peter Menzies (see this book chapter, for example).

I wish to thank Frances Abele, Angele Alook, Kelly Black, Susan Falvo, Josh Gladstone, Root Gorelick, Katelyn Lucas, Jenny Morrow, Allan Moscovitch,  and Vincent St-Martin for providing feedback on an early draft of this blog post. Any errors are mine.

 

[1] The TRC’s website is here, and all TRC reports can be found here.

[2] In 1999, a Roman Catholic nun was convicted of administering a noxious substance and assault (though she received no jail time).

My review of Robert Clark’s book on Canada’s prisons

My review of Robert Clark’s book on Canada’s prisons

by | Jan 17, 2020 | Aboriginal Peoples, Canada, Corrections, Determinants of Homelessness, Ending Homelessness, Harm Reduction, Health Care, Homeless, Indigenous peoples, Policy, Prisons, Social Policy

My review of Robert Clark’s book on Canada’s prisons

Clark, R. (2017). Down inside: Thirty years in Canada’s prison service. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane.

Robert Clark has written a very good book about his 30 years working in Canada’s prison system. Mr. Clark worked from 1980 until 2009 in seven different federal prisons, all located in Ontario. The book, a compilation of personal accounts based on the author’s various assignments, appears both balanced and concise (though it only discusses male prisoners and federal institutions).

Since prisons can be a pipeline into homelessness, I’ve reviewed the book with great interest.

Here are 10 things to know:

 

  1. Many of Canada’s prisoners are victims of child abuse. According to the author: “Most of the prisoner files I read contained histories of physical, emotional, and, often, childhood sexual abuse” (p. 16).This often led to child welfare interventions and then incarceration in youth facilities.
  1. Nearly 40% of federal prisoners have serious mental health challenges, and this is exacerbated by solitary confinement (formally known as administrative segregation).[1] Prisoners in solitary often have no idea when their time in there will end. Solitary can be very detrimental to a prisoner’s already-fragile mental health and can cause them to be suicidal. The 1996 Arbour Commission of Inquiry examined the impact of solitary confinement in detail.
  1. Many of Canada’s prison staff do outstanding work. For example, the author felt he had “hit the jackpot” when he arrived at Pittsburgh Institution (p. 216). On a personal note, I was touched to see the author single out my late uncle John Van Luven as being part of a group of four parole officers there who were “knowledgeable, professional, and self-motivated” (p. 216). 
  1. Many of Canada’s prison staff do not do outstanding work. According to the author, “too few prison employees care about the prisoners under their care, other than to make sure they are alive and behaving. Any interest in a prisoner’s well-being and their chances for becoming a law-abiding citizen is almost non-existent” (p. 16). One of the author’s colleagues used to say: “I just treat them all like they’re doing a hundred years for rape” (p. 124)! 
  1. Solidarity among staff can be excessive. Most prison staff are extremely reluctant to snitch on their colleagues—and this reluctance is known as the blue wall. Some such solidarity is very pronounced among staff in the face of management, and some staff maintain such solidarity even after they become managers. This is almost identical to the understanding that prisoners have among one another, whereby being labelled a ‘rat’ or a ‘snitch’ can come with severe consequences.
  1. Not every Canadian prison is the same. The book has considerable praise for the Regional Reception Centre at Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec. It notes, “while newcomer prisoners in Ontario languished under twenty-three-hour lockup, each new prisoner in Quebec was put through a series of academic and vocational aptitude tests that assisted staff at the next institution in guiding the prisoner’s time and energy” (p. 117). 
  1. Sometimes a specific prison can develop a bad culture. According to the book, this occurred at the now-decommissioned Kingston Penitentiary, where staff stopped enforcing many rules. When the book’s author started working there in 1997, he noticed that prison cells contained items they weren’t supposed to—in one case, a 25-metre extension cord—and that staff had simply stopped caring. (In this particular case, the author attributes much of the bad culture to a management decision to have uniformed staff work consecutive 16-hour shifts.) 
  1. Corruption at Kingston Penitentiary was eventually exposed through an RCMP investigation known as Operation Correct Zero. As a result of the investigation, five guards were terminated for various criminal offences, including drug dealing. In addition, three other guards committed suicide during the course of the investigation.
  1. I wish the book had dealt more with harm reduction in Canada’s prisons. Harm reduction focuses on reducing harm caused by drug use without requiring total abstinence. For example, it can include the distribution of condoms and unused syringes. There is an important body of evidence supporting the view that harm reduction approaches reduce the risk of transmission of blood-borne diseases and prevent overdoses. It is further estimated that HIV rates in Canada’s federal prisons are 10 times higher than in the general population, and Hepatitis C 30 times higher.
  1. I wish the book had included more of an intersectional analysis. I found that the book contained insufficient attention to the unique situations—and overrepresentation—of racialized persons (including First Nations, Inuit and Métis people) in Canada’s prisons. I also think the book could have further explored the unique experiences facing trans persons in prisons.[2]

    In Sum.     If you’re interested in learning more about conditions inside Canada’s prisons, I strongly suggest you read this book. For people interested in the role played by corrections in leading people into homelessness, the book will be especially worthwhile. I also suggest you listen to this 28-minute podcast, where the author is interviewed by the CBC’s Michael Enright.

 

I wish to thank the following individuals for assistance with this review: Robert Clark, JT Falvo, Susan Falvo, Craig Jones, Amber Kellen, Katrina Milaney, Amanda Moss, Angela Regnier, Jonathan Robart, Vincent St-Martin, and three anonymous sources. Any errors are mine.

[1] Such statistics can be found in the annual reports of the Office of the Correctional Investigator, available here.

[2] A primer on intersectional analysis can be found here.

The use of homeless shelters by Indigenous peoples in Canada

The use of homeless shelters by Indigenous peoples in Canada

by | Oct 3, 2019 | Aboriginal Peoples, Alberta, Calgary, Cities, Data Sharing, Demographics, Determinants of Homelessness, Ending Homelessness, Government, Harm Reduction, Homeless, Housing, Indigenous peoples, municipalities, Research and Data, seniors, Toronto

The use of homeless shelters by Indigenous peoples in Canada

The Canadian Press recently gained access to results of analysis of the use of homeless shelters across Canada by Indigenous peoples. The results are summarized in a March 2019 slide presentation obtained by Jordan Press through an Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) request, and are discussed in this Canadian Press article. They are based on a research project conducted by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC).

Here are 10 things to know:

 

  1. The analysis draws on data gathered from homeless shelters across Canada. ESDC has data on persons using homeless shelters from roughly half of the country’s homeless shelters. This includes data gathered via the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS) software, as well as data gathered via data sharing agreements with the City of Toronto, the Government of Alberta and BC Housing. The data used for this analysis was gathered in 2016 and is based on approximately 133,000 unique individuals (approximately 41,000 of whom are Indigenous).
  2. According to the slide presentation, Indigenous peoples in Canada are more than 11 times more likely to use a homeless shelter than non-Indigenous people. Results of the analysis are succinctly summarized in a memo prepared for the Minister which accompanies the slide presentation: “Results show that Indigenous peoples are consistently overrepresented in homeless shelters in all 46 communities examined [Indigenous peoples accounted for more than 30% of people using homeless shelters over the course of 2016, while representing less than 5% of the total population]…The degree of overrepresentation is particularly high for Indigenous women, seniors, and Inuit. Indigenous shelter users experience more shelter stays each year, and are less likely to exit a shelter because of finding a residence.”
  3. As noted in the accompanying memo: “A report is being written to expand on the results shown in the deck.” Neither the memo nor the slide presentation indicate when the report will be ready, which people and groups will be invited to provide input on drafts of the report, or whether the report will be made public. Put differently, the federal government seems to be holding its cards close to its chest on this.
  4. I was personally surprised to see the extent to which Indigenous peoples experience high episodic shelter use.  In other words, Indigenous peoples (compared with non-Indigenous peoples) tend to cycle in and out of shelters with high frequency, rather than stay for long periods of time.[1]
  5. I find it remarkable that these very important research findings had to be obtained via an ATIP request. In light of the federal government’s stated commitment to reconciliation, I would have thought it would have proactively released these findings and engaged Indigenous stakeholders in the process. This raises the following questions: To what extent were Indigenous peoples part of this analysis (beyond the fact that their data was collected and analyzed)? To what extent will Indigenous peoples be invited to discuss the implications of the analysis? Why does the slide presentation make no mention of the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association’s Indigenous Caucus?
  6. The findings pertaining to shorter shelter stays raise at least two questions. First, why do Indigenous peoples have short, but frequent, stays in homeless shelters? Second, what could be done to address this? Frequent migration between urban centres and First Nations communities may help explain this. This may also speak to the need for more low-barrier and culturally-appropriate housing options in Canada—both emergency and permanent options.
  7. The findings showing Inuit over-representation are disturbing, though not surprising. Canada’s Inuit experience high rates of unemployment, poverty, and housing need. For more on this, see: the Inuit Statistical Profile 2018, published by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami; this Statistics Canada report from 2018; and this profile of Inuit living in Ottawa.
  8. The findings pertaining to women and seniors merit reflection. The analysis finds that, while Indigenous men are more than 10 times more likely to use a homeless shelter over the course of a year than non-Indigenous men, Indigenous women are more than 15 times more likely to use a homeless shelter than non-Indigenous women over the course of a year. Meanwhile, Indigenous seniors are more than 16 times more likely to use a homeless shelter over the course of a year than non-Indigenous seniors. Why would rates of Indigenous over-representation in Canada’s homeless shelters be higher for women and seniors than for other categories?
  9. I was disappointed to see Canada’s largest city dropped from the analysis. According to the slide presentation, City of Toronto data could not be included in the analysis because the City of Toronto lacked Indigenous status data for more than 40% of unique individuals using its homeless shelters. I hope it serves as wake-up call to the Toronto’s homeless-serving sector.
  10. Among the communities studied, Calgary’s rate of Indigenous over-representation was especially high (see screenshot below). The analysis found that, in Calgary, shelter users are about 16 times more likely to be Indigenous than are members of the city’s total population. The rate for Edmonton appears to be about half of that, with only York Region (near Toronto) having a higher rate among the cities studied. It is worth noting that the Calgary Homeless Foundation recently commissioned a research project assessing flow between Treaty 7 First Nations and Calgary’s Homeless-Serving System of Care. Hopefully that project can shed light on this matter. (Full disclosure: I’m one of the research consultants working on this project, along with Gabrielle Lindstrom, Steve Pomeroy, and Jodi Bruhn.)
In sum. Many years of work go into this kind of analysis. Thousands of people were involved in the data collection, including shelter staff and officials both inside and outside of government. Further, people using homeless shelters patiently answered questions about their lives in order for this analysis to happen. However, it is clear that much work remains. It would appear that ESDC up their game in terms of working with Indigenous peoples and groups on such research projects, and some cities clearly must do a better job of data collection. We must all work collectively to understand what specific policy measures are required to address the over-representation of Indigenous peoples in Canada’s homeless shelters.

The following individuals provided me with assistance in preparing this blog post: Jodi Bruhn, Kathy Christiansen, Damian Collins, Dan Dutton, Ron Kneebone, Diana Krecsy, Eric Latimer, Katelyn Lucas, Jenny Morrow, Jennifer Robson, Vincent St-Martin, and two anonymous reviewers. Any errors are mine.

[1] Federal definitions of chronic vs. episodic homelessness are available here.

Book review: Understanding spatial media

Book review: Understanding spatial media

by | Jul 5, 2017 | Data Sharing, Determinants of Homelessness, Poverty, Poverty Reduction, Research and Data, Technology

Book review: Understanding spatial media

Rob Kitchin, Tracey Lauriault and Matthew Wilson recently co-edited a book titled Understanding Spatial Media. Published by SAGE, this book is about technology, power, people, democracy and geography.

Here are 10 things to know about the book.

1. The book can help us make better decisions pertaining to the acquisition and use of technology and data. Technological advancements happen quickly; this book encourages the reader to think carefully about these changes. It encourages us to think sociologically and technologically at the same time. That’s because technology isn’t neutral; there are politics and values embedded within it. We shape technology, which in turn shapes us.

2. This book matters because homelessness is inherently geographical. As an example, many households currently experiencing homelessness in Calgary used to live in First Nations communities. Understanding what’s driving their ‘flow in’ to Calgary’s Homeless-Serving System of Care is an important part of understanding homelessness in Calgary. Across Canada, rates of child poverty are much higher ‘on reserve’ than ‘off reserve.’ The visual below, taken from this report, makes that point quite clear.

Child Poverty rates graph

3. The book is relevant to Point-in-Time (PiT) Counts of homelessness. Chapter 21 is about spatial profiling; it looks at the action of classifying people and then acting according to that classification. As noted by Calgary Homeless Foundation’s CEO, Diana Krecsy: “The language we use in PiT Counts gets translated into policy discussions.” For example, if communities choose to start counting veterans experiencing homelessness (as has happened in many Canadian communities over the past several years) it can translate into more attention being focused on the housing needs of veterans (which I would argue has also happened).[1] Indeed, categories and definitions used in PiT Counts are not value neutral.

4. Chapter 4, “Digitally Augmented Geographies,” highlights important differences in Internet accessibility globally. Authored by Mark Graham, I found this chapter very readable. Points raised in the chapter include the fact that approximately one-quarter of the world’s population “has still never used the internet” (p. 46). The chapter further notes that, of the approximately 3 billion people in the world who do use the Internet, “many are forced to use it in very restricted ways because of economic necessity (e.g. metered plans, bandwidth caps), technical limitations (e.g. slow connectivity speeds) and government restrictions (e.g. censorship or surveillance)” (p. 46). This is relevant for persons experiencing homelessness, and it’s especially relevant to northern regions of Canada; it’s also an important advocacy area for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.[2]

5. Chapter 5, “Locative and Sousveillant Media,” discusses the use of smartphones to capture things on video…including things that weren’t intended to be captured on video. Readers learn that approximately two-thirds of the world’s population keeps a smartphone “within arms reach [sic] at all times, reaching for it 150 times per day…” (p. 57). The same chapter includes a discussion of people whipping out their phones and catching ‘incidents of interest’ on video—for me, this brought to mind a May 2017 incident in which a Toronto security guard was caught on camera while throwing objects at a man experiencing homelessness.

6. Chapter 7, titled “Urban Dashboards,” discusses a topic that is very relevant to my work at the Calgary Homeless Foundation (CHF). It notes that, since roughly 1990, the term “dashboard” has denoted “a screen giving a graphical summary of various types of information, typically used to give an overview of (part of) a business organization” (p. 75). It further notes: “Business and urban data displays often mimic the dashboard instrumentation of cards or aeroplanes. Where in a car you would find indicators for speed, oil and fuel levels, here you will find widgets representing an organization’s ‘key performance indicators’: cash flow, stocks, inventory and so forth” (p. 77). Below, readers can see an excerpt from a Calgary community dashboard.

ExternalDashboard_2017_07_05_CROP

 

This image is an excerpt from a Calgary community dashboard measuring collective impact on specific goals pertaining to homelessness to reach by the end of 2018.

7. Several of the book’s chapters are relevant to research currently being done at CHF. CHF is currently doing some ‘GIS mapping’ research. For clients receiving CHF-funded housing, we’re looking at the postal codes where they came from (before entering Calgary’s Homeless-Serving System of Care) as well as postal codes of the housing units where they end up (once we help house them). Similar research is discussed at various junctures of the book. The book’s co-editor, Dr. Tracey Lauriault, recently explained: “One of aims of the book in general is to give you the ‘critical thinking chops’ needed to do GIS mapping research.”

8. The book touches on many of the same issues discussed at the Canadian Homelessness Data Sharing Initiative. This annual event, co-hosted by CHF and the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, discusses infrastructure (i.e. where to store data); modeling and schemas (i.e. rules related to a classification system); analytics (i.e. the use of techniques, statistics and software), access to data, sensitivity (i.e. respecting people); linked data; and transparency. All of these topics are discussed in the book. (I’ve previously blogged about the inaugural data-sharing event here, and I’ve recently blogged about the second annual event here).

9. The authors who contributed to this book represent a diverse collection of scholars.Scholars from 18 universities, spanning six countries, participated in the effort. This is indicative of some impressive professional networking on the part of the book’s three editors—they opened a tent and let a lot of thinkers come inside it. This serves readers well.

10. This book is geared mostly to other researchers in geography and media studies. Most of the book’s intended readers are university professors and upper-level university students. I personally had great difficulty understanding several of the chapters. I even found Chapter 1 to be very difficult (it uses the words ontogenetic, neogeography, multivocal, geovisual and synoptic). I would therefore not recommend this book to people who lack prior knowledge in the realm of spatial media.

I wish to thank the following individuals for invaluable assistance with this blog post:   Vicki Ballance, Rachel Campbell, Chantal Hansen, Patrick Hunter, Diana Krecsy, Tracey Lauriault, Kara Layher, Michael Lenczner, Lindsay Lenny and  Joel Sinclair.  Any errors are mine.

 

[1] For examples of recent attention to veterans’ homelessness in Canada, see this this Globe and Mail article and this PowerPoint presentation. (I suspect that a variety of factors, not just PIT Counts, have likely led to increased policy attention on veterans’ homelessness in Canada over the past several years.)

[2] You can download a “pre-publication version” of this chapter here, free of charge. You can check out Professor Graham’s web site here, and you can see his contributions to The Guardian here.

 

You can view a PDF version of this blog post here: Book review- Understanding spatial media 

Ten Things to Know About Social Assistance in Canada

Ten Things to Know About Social Assistance in Canada

by | May 8, 2017 | Alberta, Determinants of Homelessness, Ending Homelessness, Pit Count, Point in time Count, Poverty Reduction, Research and Data, Social Assistance

Ten Things to Know About Social Assistance in Canada

The present blog post is the first in a two-part series on social assistance. (Part two, which looks at social assistance in Alberta, can be viewed here). The series is inspired by recent data captured in Alberta’s 2016 Point-in-Time Count of Homelessness suggesting that just a small percentage of persons experiencing homelessness in Calgary receive social assistance (see point #7 of this previous post).

Ron Kneebone (Professor of Economics at the University of Calgary) and Katherine White (Yukon’s Deputy Finance Minister) have referred to social assistance as “the final layer of the public social safety net — designed to catch those people in need of support but unable to find it from family, friends or non-government agencies…”

(I’d argue that, in larger urban centres, social assistance is in fact the second-last layer before the homeless-serving sector…)

Here are 10 things to know:

  1. Every Canadian province and territory has its own social assistance system—that is, its own legislation, its own regulations and its own policies.First Nations with self-government agreements have their own “income assistance” programs. And for First Nations without self-government agreements, income assistance is funded by Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (but “aligned with the rates and eligibility criteria for off-reserve residents of the reference province or territory”).[1] In the words of Martin Papillon (Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Ottawa): “First Nations administer income assistance on behalf of federal authorities, yet they follow rules and objectives established by provinces.”[2]
  2. There aren’t enough jobs to go around,[3] and it’s well-known that Employment Insurance benefits provide only temporary coverage (and only cover a small percentage of jobless persons).[4] Without social assistance, many people without jobs would be destitute. This places elected officials and public servants in a conundrum—while wanting to provide some basic income assistance for those without work, they don’t want to ‘make life so comfortable’ for those persons so as to discourage them from actively looking for work. They also don’t want workers to quit their jobs in the belief that social assistance provides a ‘good living.’ In other words, by design, social assistance has two contradictory objectives: 1) to give people enough money to live on; and 2) to not give people enough money to live on.
  3. In Canada, social assistance coverage expanded in the post-World War II era; it then contracted in the 1980s and 1990s. In the years following World War II, Canada experienced low unemployment, high levels of tax revenue and a strong feeling of collective solidarity. During this time, senior orders of government designed and funded a social assistance system with benefit levels and rules that were generous relative to today.[5] From the mid-1960s until the mid-1970s, this expansion was especially fast.[6] (For more on the political and economic factors that led to the post-1970s contraction, see this 2014 article by Jim Stanford.)
  4. Most people agree that social assistance benefit levels are insufficient to live on. Across Canada, 70% of households on social assistance are “food insecure.” In fact, it’s rare to see an elected official or senior public servant even attempt to make a case that social assistance benefit levels are sufficient. In 1995, an Ontario provincial cabinet minister attempted to do this; he was roundly ridiculed. In Alberta, a “single employable adult” on social assistance receives approximately $8,000 annually to live on. (To see social assistance benefit levels for yourself, check out the most recent Welfare in Canada)
  5. Very few immigrants (relative to Canada’s general population) receive social assistance.That’s a finding of research done by Tracy Smith-Carrier and Jennifer Mitchell (and that research is presented in Chapter 17 of this 2015 book on social assistance in Canada). However, a very large percentage of members of First Nations receive “income assistance” (this issue is discussed in detail by Martin Papillon in Chapter 18 of the aforementioned book).
  6. In recent years, there’s been a substantial increase in persons with disabilities receiving social assistance. At a national level, John Stapleton and Anne Tweddle have written about this here. They find this increase to be especially apparent in Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia (and they find it to be most pronounced in Alberta). For a recent review of what this trend looks like in Alberta, see this recent report.
  7. The inadequacy of social assistance puts a strain on other parts of Canada’s social welfare system. Three specific points are worth making here. First, if social assistance benefit levels were higher, there would be less demand for emergency shelter beds (that’s one of the findings of this recent report). Second, most of the government funding required for social housing in Canada is for the “rent supplement” component of the assistance (i.e. financial assistance to cover the gap between what it costs the operator to pay for the housing, on the one hand, and what a low-income household can afford, on the other). There’d be less need for social housing funding if social assistance benefit levels were higher. Third, low income is associated with poor health outcomes,[7] which in turn lead to higher health care costs. It’s therefore likely higher social assistance benefit levels would reduce health care costs in Canada.
  8. Many landlords discriminate against tenants who report social assistance as a source of income. This is commonly known by both social assistance recipients and their advocates. And in 2008, this theory was put to the test in a study where ‘mock phone calls’ were made to Toronto landlords; during the study, researchers found solid empirical support for the claim that landlords do indeed discriminate against social assistance recipients.
  9. Social assistance administrators do not track what happens to people who are denied coverage. In other words, when a person’s application for social assistance is rejected, there’s no systematic effort made to track what happens to them. However, researchers do sometimes look at what happens after people stop receiving social assistance; one such Canadian study is available here.
  10. A modest increase in social assistance benefit levels would likely reduce homelessness. A recent report estimates that modest increases in social assistance benefit levels would likely result in less need for emergency shelter beds for homeless persons. Specifically, the report suggests that a 15-20% increase in benefit levels for ‘single employables’ would likely result in a 15-20% decrease in demand for shelter beds.

In Sum. Across Canada, social assistance plays an important, but insufficient, role in poverty alleviation. Higher social assistance benefit levels would likely result in tangible outcomes, including less food insecurity, improved health outcomes and less homelessness. Part 2 of the present blog series will focus on the Alberta context.

The author wishes to thank Daniel Béland, Gerry Boychuk, Pierre-Marc Daigneault, Louise Gallagher, Seth Klein, Jennefer Laidley, Kara Layher, Lindsay Lenny, Michael Mendelson, Dionne Miazdyck-Shield, Munir Sheikh, Anne Tweddle and Donna Wood for invaluable assistance with this blog post. Any errors lie with the author.

 

Download a PDF of this blog post here: Ten Things to Know About Social Assistance in Canada

 

[1] An important exception is Ontario, where the provincial government is responsible for on-reserve income assistance. Martin Papillon briefly discusses this in Chapter 18 of this book.

[2] I’ve taken this quote from p. 334 of this book.

[3] For more on the relationship between the labour market and social assistance receipt, see Gerard Boychuk’s chapter in this 2015 book. Figure 2.2 in the chapter consists of a line graph suggestive of a strong correlation (R2 = – 0.88) between the percentage of Canada’s adult population receiving social assistance, and the employment rate, over time.

[4] For more on the inadequacy of Employment Insurance benefits, see the Employment Insurance chapter in the 2017 Alternative Federal Budget.

[5] This happened as part of an expansion of Canada’s entire social welfare system. For more on this, see this book by Dennis Guest.

[6] To learn more about this history, check out my PhD thesis, which can be downloaded here.

 

[7] This 2009 report, focusing on the Ontario context, looks specifically at health outcomes of social assistance recipients.

 

Advocacy in Canada’s Affordable Housing and Homelessness Sectors

Advocacy in Canada’s Affordable Housing and Homelessness Sectors

by | Apr 24, 2017 | Alberta, Determinants of Homelessness, Ending Homelessness, Policy, Research and Data, Social Housing

Advocacy in Canada’s Affordable Housing and Homelessness Sectors

On January 24, I gave a presentation to students at the University of Calgary as part of the Certificate in Working with Homeless Populations program. The goal of this presentation was to discuss ways students could advocate to senior orders of government for better public policy that can help end homelessness.

My PowerPoint slides from the presentation can be downloaded here: Falvo_Homelessness Advocacy WHP 3 of 3 20jan2017.

This is the last of a 3-part presentation that I delivered that day. A blog post based on Part 1 can be found here, while a blog post based on Part 2 can be found here.

Here are 10 things to know about advocacy in Canada’s homelessness and affordable housing sectors:

  1. Advocacy can be defined as a collective effort to bring about changes to political priorities, funding levels, legislation, regulations or policies. It’s relevant to people working in the homeless-serving sector because, in addition to delivering services to clients on a day-to-day basis, many workers in that sector also want to see changes to public policy that would help end homelessness.
  2. In the homelessness and affordable housing sectors, there are at least seven approaches to advocacy. They are: grassroots advocacy; direct action; rights-based advocacy; government-to-government advocacy; advocacy within Parliament; professionalized advocacy; and policy-based advocacy. Some people and groups take part in more than one type of advocacy; also, there’s considerable overlap among the different approaches.
  3. People engaged in “grassroots advocacy” have often been directly affected by homelessness. Also, their effort likely has a very small budget. This often involves informal working relationships, as well as a strong volunteer component. Examples of grassroots advocacy in Canada’s homelessness and affordable housing sectors include: Calgary’s Client Action Committee; Vancouver’s Carnegie Community Action Project; Housing Action Now (in Toronto); Montreal’s Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain(FRAPRU); and Montreal’s Réseau d’aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes de Montréal (RAPSIM).
  4. People who engage in “direct action” are very willing to be disruptive (i.e. sit-ins, protest, civil disobedience). Little effort is made to charm or cajole the audience (e.g., observers, media, etc.). Direct action often receives a considerable amount of media attention. Examples of groups who engage in direct action include CLAC-Montréal and the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.
  5. The underlying argument of “rights-based advocacy” is that individuals should receive a social benefit because it’s their legal right to have it. This often means challenging interpretations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and invoking “economic, social and cultural rights.”[1] Rights-based advocacy is heavily dominated by people in the legal community. Examples of organizations that take this approach include Canada Without Poverty and the Right to Housing Coalition (organized by the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario). An example of a Calgary-based approach to rights-based advocacy is the Homeless Charter of Rights project.
  6. Government-to-government advocacy, as well as advocacy within a legislature or parliament, has obvious importance. Examples of organizations that engage in the former approach include the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Assembly of First Nations. Examples of advocacy that take place within a legislature or parliament include Question Period, committee work and the legislative process.
  7. “Professionalized advocacy” is often well-resourced and tries to positively reinforce what it sees as ‘good behaviour’ by government. This approach typically involves frequent meetings with elected officials—sometimes elected officials even seek out the group in question for their opinion and for background information. Such groups typically have multiple paid staff and sufficient resources to plan large events (e.g., conferences), hire consultants, commission research and produce web-based resources. Such organizations often provide services to their members (e.g. webinars, trainings). They also place emphasis on positive messaging with government (i.e. praising good behaviour, positive reinforcement). Canadian groups in the homelessness and affordable housing sector that engage in this approach include the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, Housing Partnership Canada and the National Housing Collaborative.
  8. “Policy-based advocacy” is an approach whereby a specific policy or funding pitch is used to galvanize attention and lobby government. Examples include the Alternative Federal Budget, the One Percent Solution and “ending homelessness.” (As a self-proclaimed policy wonk myself, I like this approach very much.)
  9. In the past decade, there’s been a change in tone in Canadian homelessness advocacy. Beginning in the mid-2000s, many homelessness advocates began making their cases to senior orders of government in Canada in new ways. Advocates started to emphasize what the non-profit sector could do differently, rather than how much more money senior orders of government needed to spend on social welfare programs. Increasingly, advocates also began using economic arguments in favour of action (by emphasizing the economic cost of homelessness to society) rather than a moral argument. This approach was especially popular among those practicing the professionalized approach; it has notbeen as popular within the direct action movement. I’ve previously blogged about this phenomenon here.
  10. There’s a role for all of these approaches. There’s no inherent reason why all of these approaches can’t co-exist. Not only do they not need to compete; they can actually complement and reinforce each other. I would argue, for example, that direct action approaches ‘create space’ for professionalized approaches. What’s more, some people and groups may choose to practice a variety of approaches.

The author wishes to thank the following individuals for invaluable assistance with this blog post:  Cathy Crowe, Katie-Sue Derejko, Louise Gallagher, Kara Layher, Allan Moscovitch, Emily Paradis, Steve Pomeroy, Kaitlin Schwan and Greg Suttor. Any errors lie with the author.

[1] For a consideration of whether economic, social and cultural rights can be litigated in courts, see this resource.

You can get a PDF version of this blog post here: Advocacy in Canada’s Affordable Housing and Homelessness Sectors