f but essenti
ee ntia

1 to the mental and soci
al
eiare of the community.

Crying need is for low-cost pub-
pains and for immediate memiealal
= ee senior governments.

nea Ap for housing can generate
foe ne Icipal Councils. They can do
citizen 2 Is realized by the average
Act th pater the National Housing
B vide 7s €deral government will pro-
“the apne the provinces, 25%, of
! : a Cost of public housing.

city governm i

advantage of this Se ee

WY are these funds not being used?

The
lic h
acti

There are vast areas of city-owned
property. Why is this not made avail-
able for low-rental public housing?

POOR HOUSING

Beyond inadequate income as a
source of poverty, the very environ-
ment of poor housing has negative
effects. An impoverished environment
holds back emotional development and
results in disruption of the home and
family.

Noteworthy are reliable statistics in-
dicating the acute poverty problem is
exclusively in the eastern regions of
Canada. Acute poverty is found also
in Montreal and .Toronto. Over one-
half (54%) of Canada’s lowest income
families live in Ontario and the west-
ern provinces.

Ontario Housing Corporation reports
over 22,000 applications for housing on
the waiting list, including many of the
elderly. :

In Montreal, Canada’s largest city,
only 3,000 public housing units have
been built in 10 years, while more than
200,000 people are sorely in need of
improved low cost housing. (Millions
of dollars are found for Expo and Olym-
pic Games.) Little wonder that sur-
veys disclose only a small minority of
adult’ welfare recipients are healthy
enough to work; that Quebec has the
poorest and the lowest life expectancy
rate in Canada; that infant mortality in
Quebec is still the highest in Canada.
The tuberculosis rate in Quebec is over
three times as great as in Ontario;
the rate of deaths due to cancer is
higher in Quebec than in Ontario.

Increasing unemployment threatens
the health and well-being of a large
part of Quebec’s population. With 25%
of Canada’s labor force, Quebec has
41% of the unemployed.

Solutions for the lack of housing
must be found. As pointed out in a
brief presented to the Senate Commit-
tee on Poverty by a group from Mont-
real: “Do you expect us to sit idly by
and accept your definition of poverty

and your band-aid solutions? Our ~

children are rebellious now and they
turn their anger on their families. When
they realize how helplessly we are trap-
ped under the present structure, on
whom will they turn their anger?”

The costs in human terms of indivi-
dual and family breakdown due to
housing shortages are inestimable.

One can imagine the traumatic. ex-
perience of eviction or foreclosure on
parents and children. Insecurity of in-
come is precipitating economic crises
in family living. The Assistant Deputy-
Sheriff, County of York, Ontario, re-
ports that in 1970 there were 348 fami-
lies evicted. In 1969, when unemploy-
ment was not quite so high, there were
still 200 evictions. The Deputy-Sheriff
predicts eviction proceedings in 1971
will increase markedly, probably to
over 500.

The tragedies and disadvantages of
homelessness affecting families, young
couples, the elderly and the young are
remedial disadvantages. Government
action to build low cost public housing
can remedy the situation. To repeat:
It is the Canadian government’s refusal
to place high priority on the needs of
the Canadian people which lies at the
root of the problem.

SERIOUS SITUATION

Statistics point to the fact that nearly
20% of all Canadian families and 40%
of individuals on their own live near,
or below the “poverty line”. Surely the
Canadian government must realize the
seriousness of this state of affairs!

Dr. Albert Rose, Director of the
University of Toronto School of Social
Work and an expert on housing, in
addressing the May 1970 annual meet-
ing of the Ontario Association of
Children’s Aid Societies, stated: “All
efforts we can make to ensure the sur-
vival of the family and to reverse the
present tendencies that are tearing our
society to pieces, constitute the most
serious challenge of our times.”

He added that an adequate program
of income maintenance would help to
contribute to the stability of the home,
In respect to the dire need for public,
low rental housing, Dr. Rose said:

“What our present family will want
will be a new form of environment for
multiple dwelling in which, within the
building, the child will be raised in
day care centres, nursery schools, ele-
mentary schools, recreational facilities
and play space. Only in this way could
both parents go out to work every day
and pursue their independent and inter-
dependent careers. With the income
available to them, they could afford to
pay for the very best, and the very
best will be a family environment with-
in a multiple dwelling.”

Child placement agencies are assum-
ing overburdening financial and guard-
ianship responsibilities in this period
of stress and income insecurity-in fami-
lies. Not all social workers are satisfied
to adopt the role of “guardian” for the
child taken into care because the par-
ents have no financial security and are
unable to find homes at a rental they
can afford. Some social workers ques-
tion whether or not children should be
under their guardianship for protection
when parents are denied jobs and lack
shelter. These social workers maintain
that housing is a municipal responsibi-
lity and that families, facing eviction
with no place to go, should be referred
to municipal offices with the Children’s
Aid Society refusing to take children
in care in such circumstances. Some
Children’s Aid workers feel that this
agency should not be left “to pick up
the pieces” of a broken family in cases
where economic necessity has been the
cause of breakdown.

The family is the most common unit
in our society. To afford stability of the
home, it must be a producing unit. The
adults in the family must be enabled
to participate in the labor force cur-
rently, and must have the opportunity
to prepare their children to do so in
the future—a fact which has not, re-
grettably, been sufficiently recognized

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 1971—PAGE 7

in our society nor been taken into con-
sideration by our government. _

Countty-wide economic development
and the creation of new jobs to offset
unemployment are the responsibilities
of our government. The federal govern-
ment and private and corporate em-
ployers are answerable for the “mess”
we are in and should bear the burden
for its costs.

HOW SHALL WE LIVE?

The agonizing question, “How are
we going to live?’’ which I encountered
at the Poor People’s Conference in To-
ronto has to be answered. Canadians
must get into action to change the
situation.

We cannot continue to tolerate Tru-
deau’s fuddle-duddling and the series
of ohs and ahs’ from the opposition
benches. We cannot live on hopes that
opposition debates with the Prime
Minister on the mouthing of obscenities
will feed the hungry and the dispossess-
ed in Canada.

At the Poor People’s Conference I
found the blossoming forth of spon-
taneous low income groups from cities
and towns across our country. Citizens
in those low-income groups are angry.
They are angry and impatient about the
situation: they have been forced into,
and they are acting to change it!

I encountered many examples of how
citizens: groups have produced signifi-
cant improvements in their communi-
ties. Whenever these groups have dealt
directly with their elected officials at
all levels of government, their impact
has achieved impressive results. This
has been especially true when citizens’
groups have had the support of trade
unions and-have co-operated directly
with organized workers.

Citizens become aware of each other,
of their common problems and of their
own strength and ability to solve them.