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Raise the Roof
What is homelessness and some solutions
What is Raise the Roof
Hidden Homelessness
10 Things YOU can do to help
Toque Campaign
Corporations can help too!
Events
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Contacting Us

Raising the Roof
 
Help put a cap on homelessness

What is homelessness

No one should be homeless in a country with Canada's resources. Yet, across the country, we are witnessing dramatic increases in the number of people with no place to call home.

Homelessness - simply defined - is the absence of a place to live. A person who has no regular place to live stays in an overnight emergency shelter, an abandoned building, an all-night coffee shop or theatre, a car, outdoors, or other such places not meant to be living spaces.

In the early 1980s, it became obvious that there was an increasing number of individuals and families, in the wealthiest nations, who had no place of their own to live and did not have enough money to pay for life's necessities. They once had housing. They once had enough money to get by on. They once had a support network of family and friends in combination with a public "social safety net."

The person you see on the street is just the tip of the iceberg.
The long-term or "chronically" homeless person - the individuals we tend to see on our streets - represent less than 20% of the homeless population. The rest are families and individuals who find themselves without a place to live for a period of time.

http://www.raisingtheroof.org/lrn-home-index.cfm

 

 

What are the Solutions?
 

The causes of homelessness are indeed complex. But, there are solutions.

All homeless people have one thing in common - a lack of housing. The gap between the cost of adequate housing and the income available to pay for it is too large for many individuals and families. Though we can debate what has caused the dramatic increase in the number of people without housing, access to housing is still the first step in dealing with the problem. Until people find a safe, secure, affordable home, and have stability where they live, they cannot achieve stability where they work, where their children go to school and where they find support.

There are three components to addressing homelessness:

  • All Canadians require adequate, affordable housing.
  • All need enough money to live on (jobs, job training, adequate income).
  • Some men, women and youth who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless need support services - some including for health and mental health problems, some to overcome substance abuse, and some to simply recover from a long period of being houseless.

These practical supports include job search assistance, substance abuse treatment, housing support services, job training, education, physical and mental health care, and the provision of shelter tied to transitional and permanent affordable housing for people who would otherwise be on the streets.

Click on the Stories button on the right to see examples of these types of community-based solutions in action.

Prevention is a key part of the solution. And, we must have a national strategy to address and prevent homelessness, accompanied by local strategies which complement and implement the national approach.

To address the root causes, Canada, its provinces and its municipalities must to address poverty and affordable housing problems. Because poverty is one of the root causes of homelessness, developing strategies for adequate social assistance benefits, and job training and employment options are critical for long-term solutions. The strategies must also address rental housing market options, social housing options, effective prevention of discrimination in the housing and job markets, specialized services for people with mental illness, chemical dependencies and other problems, and adequate settlement services for newcomers.

Raising the Roof fosters the involvement of governments, businesses, community and faith groups, service providers and homeless people to work on developing national strategies to address homelessness and implement the specific solutions that will help end homelessness in Canada. As part of this mandate, we are dedicated to funding and working with community-based agencies with experience in developing local solutions for people who find themselves unable to afford the basic necessity of a place to call home.

http://www.raisingtheroof.org/lrn-solu-index.cfm

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