...In a report released Tuesday from the Calgary-based Sheldon Chumir
Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, journalist and author Gordon Laird
argues homelessness is now chronic and is quickly becoming one of the
country's defining social issues. He makes a case for a national housing
strategy and a more robust income security program.

Citing statistics from a wide range of organizations, Laird says poverty is
the leading cause of homelessness in Canada, not substance abuse or mental
illness...

He cites government numbers showing a cost of up to $6 billion a year to
service a "core" homeless population of 150,000. That cost includes health
care, criminal justice, social services and emergency shelter costs.

"The high cost of homelessness in Canada results from the role of
homelessness as a proven multiplier of societal ills: malnutrition,
unemployment, addiction, mental illness, family strife and lack of income
security are all intensified when an individual or household becomes
homeless," he writes. 

The report criticizes Canada for trying to contain the growth of
homelessness with temporary measures such as shelters and other crisis-based
services. It cites studies that show the cost of emergency shelters is much
greater than the cost of creating affordable housing and implementing rent
supplements.

Laird says the former national affordable housing strategy, discontinued in
1993, created 650,000 units providing housing for more than two million
Canadians. While new investments in affordable housing were made in 2005,
there is no national strategy and so no guarantee the money will be
well-spent, he says.

"And without a national strategy on housing and homelessness, there is much
risk for repeating past mistakes and spending blindly on short-term fixes
and emergency responses," writes Laird.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/06/26/shelter.html

Gordon Laird's report (PDF):
http://www.chumirethicsfoundation.ca/files/pdf/SHELTER.pdf

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