Tag Archives: Blog
Why help refugees when Canadians are homeless?
Discussion of the Syrian refugee crisis was common around family dinner tables over the holiday season. With the new Canadian Government working quickly to fulfill their election pledge, communities across Canada are beginning to receive their first government sponsored refugees. … Continue reading
Letter to Council
In light of the current multi-year budgeting process at City Hall, I drafted this letter on behalf of the London Homeless Coalition: Dear Mayor Brown and esteemed members of London City Council, On Thursday, October 8th the London Homeless Coalition … Continue reading
Don’t Criminalize Homelessness; Do Criminalize Low Standards
The criminalization of homelessness is a scourge of societies across the globe. The general thought behind it goes something like this: People and/or their behaviours are anti-social and/or bad for our neighbourhood(s), therefore we will make criminal certain acts that … Continue reading
Quality Housing for All
I was asked to give comment regarding a number of residential facilities being re-classed as care homes, which has financial implications for the managers of these facilities. Here are my thoughts: As Chair of the London Homeless Coalition I was acutely … Continue reading
Our Humanity
A Tim Hortons worker pours water on a sleeping homeless man in the middle of winter. A London Free Press reader in the comments suggests killing refugees being screened for Ebola. My students speak of nurses suggesting patients with conditions … Continue reading
Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Strategy: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful
Today, the Government of Ontario released the 2014-2019 Ontario Poverty Reduction Strategy. This follows up on the 2008-2013 Strategy, which I evaluated here and here. The previous strategy was focused on child poverty, and although the target of a 25% reduction in … Continue reading
Housing First – Mental Health
Housing First was always in a way designed with people experiencing mental health challenges in mind. This is because the model was originally focused on ending chronic homelessness, and both chronic homelessness and homelessness in general occur most often in … Continue reading
Housing First Series
In my previous post I started to unpack some of the intricacies of housing first. What I hope this highlighted was that although housing first is an overall effective model, there is still some work to do in terms of … Continue reading
Cell Phones for the Homeless?
This very well written, thoughtful, and detailed article on Mashable about homelessness and connectivity is well worth the read. It makes a number of valuable points about homelessness and smart phone connectivity with which I agree: Experiences of homelessness are … Continue reading
7 Tough Questions for Housing First
Housing First has now been lauded far and wide as the most effective solution to homelessness in developed nations. This model focuses on rapidly moving people into independent and permanent housing regardless of where they are in their own personal … Continue reading
