How Do You Know You’re Dealing With A Slumlord ?

Mar 11, 2020,08:00am EDT

Here are some telltale signs that you may be dealing with a slumlord.

  1. Deferred Maintenance. The most tested and true sign you may be dealing with a slumlord is the property’s physical condition. …
  2. Untimely Or Incomplete Tenant Work Orders. …
  3. Unlicensed Workers. …
  4. Cash Deals And No Leases. …
  5. No Respect For Tenants.
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We have all heard the stories about roach-infested properties, overgrown landscaping, crime-ridden communities and beyond. Working in the real estate industry, you may have even met a few of these individuals who actually gloat and admire their abilities to manage a building while doing the least amount of work for the cheapest price.

These people are known as slumlords, and sadly, their methods are still alive and well. In fact, being a slumlord for some is actually a business model: running the property into the ground and utilizing as much depreciation as possible, not really caring what happens at the end of the property’s useful life. Although many investors have benefited from the aftermath of slumlords’ actions, in the end, more damage is done to the community and the people who have to live and work in the surrounding area.

Here are some telltale signs that you may be dealing with a slumlord.

1. Deferred Maintenance

The most tested and true sign you may be dealing with a slumlord is the property’s physical condition. Broken or boarded-up windows or doors, graffiti, trash, overgrown landscaping, broken or nonworking lights, and nonfunctional gates are several factors you want to be aware of. It’s one thing to have one or two of these items noted; it’s a whole other when the property as a whole appears drab and run-down. The lack of care is hard to ignore and is a good indicator that you may be dealing with a slumlord.

2. Untimely Or Incomplete Tenant Work Orders

Another sign to consider is how the work orders are handled with the tenants. Although laws differ throughout the country, common sense should tell you what a reasonable time frame for day-to-day work orders should be. Unless a major issue is at hand, such as heating or cooling, sewer, plumbing, roofing, or electrical, there is no justifiable reason items should not be addressed within reasonable time frames.

Orders for issues such as a running toilet, leaky sink, broken dishwasher or garbage disposal should all fall within a five-to-10-day range. Also, when the work is done, is should be fully completed with care and craftsmanship. Many slumlords are known for starting jobs and not finishing, or using the cheapest labor they can find. This typically leads to faulty work and can actually encourage the problem to get worse.

3. Unlicensed Workers

Some states are now requiring that property managers use licensed workers for all their property maintenance issues and that handymen can only work a limited number of hours if they are not licensed. Although a slumlord may not be required to follow these guidelines if they are not licensed, it’s always a good idea to determine who is doing the work around the property and if they are indeed licensed or not.

4. Cash Deals And No Leases

For slumlords, cash and limited or no leases at all are great strategies for “staying under the radar” from the IRS, as well as not being held to a binding contract. Ironically, the cash they collect does very little when a tenant without a lease decides not to pay or leaves the property in shambles after vacating. Nonetheless, the mindset of a slumlord doesn’t stop this type of behavior from happening.

5. No Respect For Tenants

Slumlords have the tendency to feel superior or show a lack of respect for their tenants. They might see addressing their tenants’ concerns is more of a privilege to the tenant than their obligation as the owner. The goal is to use and abuse tenants and do as little as possible, all the while collecting as much income as possible, while the property steadily declines. In the end, it is a receipt for disaster and has been a contributing factor to the erosion of communities.

What To Do

If you are considering buying an investment property from a slumlord, take heed. Although there could be “potential” in the numbers, some properties have established such a bad stigma through years of neglect that no amount of revitalization may be worth the return. Also, what you may be inheriting could be far worse than even the due diligence can discover. When the risk exceeds the rewards, don’t take the chance.

If you’re a current property owner and justify any of these items in your day-to-day management practice, you may want to reestablish your priorities and stop putting off the standard requirements involved in owing and running property. Once major issues start spiraling out of control, it becomes hard to catch up, but easier to let things slide.

If you’re neither an investor nor owner, but rather someone needing direction on how to combat a slumlord, your best bet is to call your local city or county and make a complaint, or call your local news station. The more pressure you put on these individuals, the less they are able to hide.

Alex Vasquez is the owner of Rhino Realty Property Management and Rhino Realty B&B, entrepreneur, investor, advisor, author and speaker.

Homelessness: How does it happen?

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Having a safe and stable place to call home is central to leading a healthy and prosperous life. In 2021, we asked Canadian households if they had ever experienced some form of homelessness in their lifetime. Over one in ten (11.2%) Canadians or 1,690,000 people reported that they had.

Homelessness is often thought of as living in a shelter, or completely unhoused in an encampment or public space. This kind of homelessness in Canada is referred to as absolute homelessness, an experience shared by 2.2% of households at some point in their lives. There are, however, many more Canadians (10.5%) who have experienced hidden homelessness, like couch surfing, because they had nowhere else to live.

Inequities and pathways of homelessness

This lack of stable housing can result in disparities between groups of people, with some more or less likely to have faced homelessness than others. For example, Indigenous households (29.5%) were almost three times as likely to have experienced some form of homelessness when compared with the total population, while racialized (9.5%) and immigrant (8.3%) households were below the national average. Similarly, recent point-in-time counts of homeless shelters nation-wide have found that 35% of respondents identify as Indigenous.

What drives people into homelessness in Canada and why have so many Canadians found themselves without a home? We asked Canadians to tell us what happened leading up to their homelessness episode, and for those who experienced hidden homelessness, we asked those who had been homeless for more than a month. Here’s what they told us…

Financial challenges are the leading cause of homelessness

Deteriorating housing affordability following the onset of the pandemic, combined with higher unemployment and fewer job vacancies in recent months, along with a surge in inflation throughout 2021 and 2022, has led to higher costs for essential goods and services. These factors continue to place financial pressures on many households across Canada.

In the fall of 2022, almost half (44.0%) of Canadians were very concerned with their household’s ability to afford housing or rent. So, it comes as no surprise that the most reported reason leading to homelessness was financial issues (41.8%).

Victims of abuse may have nowhere to go

The link between abusive home situations and homelessness is an ongoing concern as the incidence of  family violence in Canada rose for the fifth consecutive year in 2021, with women and girls accounting for two-thirds of the victims.

Relationship issues (36.9%) was the second leading factor driving Canadians into homelessness. A related driver was fleeing abuse (13.3%)—a common pathway into homelessness for many, but four times more likely for women than for men (20.9% vs 5.2%).

When looking at absolute homelessness exclusively, these figures double—with just over two in five women (40.4%) reporting absolute homelessness at some point as a result of fleeing abuse, compared with 12.1% of men.

Health issues can interrupt housing stability

While financial and relationship issues are the most common causes of homelessness, health-related issues can also lead to homelessness episodes. Choose top-notch ac repair service for reliable solutions that keep your home comfortable year-round.

Canadians who have experienced any form of homelessness were more likely to report fair or poor mental health (38.0% versus 17.3%) than the overall population. More respondents listed health issues as a major factor contributing to absolute homelessness (16.5%) than to hidden homelessness (8.9%).

Canadians experiencing homelessness and underlying mental health conditions have also been highly represented in recent opioid hospitalizations.

Moving doesn’t always lead to finding a home

Canadians move for a variety of reasons, including changing household size, employment, better housing or neighbourhoods, and evictions, leading to many diverse experiences of hidden homelessness.

Other notable drivers of hidden homelessness are relocation (20.9%) and waiting to move into a new home (16.0%). Over one in three households relocating at some point in the past reported waiting over six months in a state of hidden homelessness.

Becoming housed may not be the end of housing need

Households experiencing homelessness in the past were more likely to be living in dwellings in need of major repairs or in core housing need. No matter how someone becomes homeless, housing (or the lack thereof) has been shown to have a significant effect on one’s future—for better or for worse.

Originally Published on a Federal Canadian Site; StatsCan December 06th, 2023

Prison: A Homelessness Factory

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by C.L. Michel

Cultivating Curiosity 

Talking about prison is taboo—Canadian society deals with it far less than is common in other jurisdictions (eg., the United States). Most people in Canada don’t know anything about how the prison system works or what conditions in it are like if they or a loved one haven’t experienced it. 

One reason for this is that prison produces silence. The voices of prisoners are cut off from the world, and what happens inside prisons only makes the news in the most extreme cases. This lack of attention is problematic because the prison system is central to how many different forms of oppression reproduce themselves. For instance, it maintains class society and economic exploitation. It is a tool of racist and colonial violence that keeps whole communities down, and it produces gendered forms of trauma on a mass scale.  

Prison functions like a black box. We can see what happens prior to entering the prison system in terms of crime, policing, and the justice system, and we can see the negative outcomes of the prison system once people leave, such as poverty, homelessness, and social exclusion, but the space in between is opaque—we can’t see the conditions inside prisons that produce these outcomes. 

If we want to find solutions to complex problems like homelessness, we need to cultivate some curiosity about people’s experiences with systems we might not normally think about, like prison. 

Types of Prisons in Canada 

The various prisons in Canada are separated into two types: federal and provincial. Federal prisons, also known as penitentiaries, are where prisoners who are sentenced to over two years are sent. Although only about a third of all prisoners are in federal prison, it is what people think of on the rare occasions that they think about prison in Canada. 

The remaining two thirds of prisoners are in provincial prisons. People sentenced to less than two years, those who have been denied bail, and an increasing number of immigration detainees are in provincial prisons. All federal prisoners have also spent time in a provincial prison, and the majority of prisoners will do all their time there. Despite this, they receive far less attention than federal prisons. In provincial prisons there is less programming, less oversight, and fewer organizations that provide support. The conditions inside these prisons are far, far worse. 

In Ontario, the Ministry of the Solicitor General operates 25 adult prisons that hold around 7,500 prisoners on any given day, with an average period of incarceration of 45 days (almost 150,000 people are admitted into provincial prisons across Canada in any given year).  

Many provinces subdivide provincial prisons into other administrative categories. For the purpose of this blog, we will be focusing on adult prisons in Ontario, but there are also youth prisons and mental health prisons. There are two kinds of adult provincial prisons in Ontario: detention centres (DCs), for those who have been denied bail or sentenced to less than three months, and correctional centres, for those who have been sentenced to between three months and two years.  

In many provinces (eg., Ontario, Alberta, and Nova Scotia), about 70% of prisoners in provincial prisons are on “remand,” meaning they are only locked up because they were denied bail. This means that about half of all prisoners in Canada are on remand. This is   a significantly higher proportion than in the United States, and it has been getting worse with time.  

Since most of Canada’s prisoners are in remand, the conditions they face are crucial to understanding the prison system as a whole and the way it contributes to homelessness.  

Conditions for Remand Prisoners in Ontario 

Prisoners who have been denied bail are held in the harshest conditions in the prison system. All of Ontario’s DCs are considered maximum security, meaning they face the most restrictions on their movements, what they can have access to, and possibilities for programming.  

Detention centres are very crowded. Cells built for one or two prisoners routinely hold three, with one person sleeping on a mattress on the floor. There are frequent lockdowns, which is when prisoners are confined to their cells except for half an hour every second day. Combine these two factors and you have three prisoners held together in a space the size of a bathroom stall for days at a time without even enough room to stand up and move around. This obviously aggravates physical and mental health conditions.  

There are almost no programs in DCs, and there is very limited access to books. Visits are short (two 20-minute visits a week) and are frequently cancelled without notice. Although prisoners are entitled to 20 minutes of fresh air every day, they may only get “yard time” a couple of times a month.  

Detention centres are also very violent. Since everyone in a DC is in pre-trial and the average stay is short, there is a high turnover with lots of coming and going, making hierarchies unstable. The needs of those living in a DC for short periods may conflict with those of prisoners there for years, and the overcrowded conditions with no privacy result in high stress levels.  

Guards are also able to brutalize prisoners with near impunity. While a report from the Ontario ombudsman denounced the use of force by guards and the guards’ code of silence that interferes with investigations, this report was not enough to stop this violence from continuing. 

When you add in the overdose crisis and an inadequate medical system to the previously mentioned factors, the result is that 29 people died inside of Ontario’s provincial prisons in 2021. From previous years’ statistics compiled by Reuters, 85% of all deaths in Ontario’s provincial prison are people in remand custody, meaning those in detention centres are dying at a disproportionate rate.  

Although prison harms everyone it touches, it does not do this in the same way to everyone. Prison functions on the basis of separation, firstly by cutting people off from society, then by sorting them to expose them to different forms of harm. The administrative differences described above are one way of sorting people. Another important way the prison system does this is by gender or sex. 

Gendered Harm

All prisoners are labelled as either male or female depending on the institution’s best guess of their sex at birth, and so there are two gendered forms of incarceration known as men’s and women’s prison. There is a lot to say about how the Ontario prison system deals with trans identity, but for the purposes of this blog, it is enough to know that almost all trans people go to women’s prison. Women’s prison can be thought of as a prison for people who would be at risk of sexual violence if all prisoners were just lumped together. 

Officially, there should be little difference between men’s and women’s prisons, and the conditions are generally the same. However, it is worth reflecting on how identical treatment within an unequal society produces drastically different results.  

To give a quick example, the food in men and women’s prison is exactly the same. In men’s prison, this is mostly felt to be insufficient, in part because working out is a big part of prisoner culture. Men prisoners are often released stronger and fitter than when they went in. In women’s prisons, exercise is discouraged both by prisoner culture and by the guards. Women prisoners often experience rapid weight gain and a general decrease in fitness due to the enforced immobility. 

In this example and in so many others, sorting people by gender means the prison system is involved in reproducing negative gender dynamics. Many conditions faced by women prisoners compound common forms of gender-based trauma, such as: 

  • Frequent strip searches 
  • Round the clock surveillance by male guards 
  • The absence of privacy 
  • Losing custody over children  
  • Losing housing 

After release, feminized professions tend to care more about criminal records than many male-dominated ones: consider customer service vs. construction or childcare vs. trucking. This results in women experiencing more exclusion from the job market upon release, contributing to cycles of dependence and victimization. 

Similarly, the intense violence of men’s prison is tied to a macho prisoner culture steeped in homophobia and misogyny. This culture is then exported back out into communities by former prisoners. Both gendered experiences leave people more likely to commit future criminalized acts and end up back in prison.  

Why Does this Matter to the Homelessness Sector? 

The prison and justice systems leave a lot of people homeless and undermine the housing stability of everyone who interacts with them. Prisons also compound problems with physical and mental health, addiction, and trauma (common risk factors for homelessness). Even short stays in prison can be enough to make someone lose their job and housing, making it a clear issue for the homelessness sector. As well, people who are homeless are disproportionately represented in prison—across Canada, over 16% of prisoners are homeless, up from 6% in 2009.  

There are also major issues of social justice around prison that can only be addressed when we understand how people move through the system and what conditions they face. The awful conditions in provincial prisons amplify other forms of systemic oppression. For instance, it is nothing new to say that Black and Indigenous people are disproportionately represented among prisoners—but it feels different to say that Black and Indigenous people are more likely to be held in an overcrowded prison cell with no privacy or room to move around for weeks at a time.  

The experiences of prisoners are not well understood within the homelessness sector, which can create barriers to accessing services. There are very few services available that specifically help people being discharged from prison, leaving them to seek out services that are not tailored to their needs.  

By looking more closely at what prisoners go through inside the black box, we can work towards better outcomes for them and remove some of the added barriers they face to obtaining safe, stable, and affordable housing. 

Originally Published @ Homeless Hub

October 11th, 2023

Cost Effectiveness of Ending Homelessness

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An adequate supply of safe, affordable and appropriate housing is a prerequisite to truly ending homelessness in the long term. This includes ensuring that people who are chronically and episodically homeless are prioritized and that systems are in place to enable such persons to receive housing and supports through Housing First programs. Additionally, providing scissor lift training courses can enhance the skill sets of individuals transitioning into housing stability. With the IPAF training services it can further support this transition by offering specialized training for those needing to develop skills for job placement. Also, the boom lift services are crucial for ensuring safe and efficient construction and maintenance practices, which can indirectly support housing development. In a tight housing market, implementing a Housing First agenda becomes that much more challenging. It is also important to address the supply of affordable housing, in order to broaden access for other priority populations, including women fleeing violence, Indigenous Peoples, families, seniors and youth, for instance.

Ultimately, addressing Canada’s housing crisis comes down to money, which then begs the question about our national priorities.

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Spending on affordable housing for Canada’s poorest households, however, is less than one quarter of that invested in homeownership at approximately $2.1 billion per year and has declined quite dramatically over the past 25 years.

Ironically, it costs more to ignore our housing problem than it would to fix it. Consider the estimate that homelessness alone costs the Canadian economy over $7 billion per year. While the Government of Canada invests $119 million annually to address homelessness through the Homelessness Partnering Strategy (provinces and municipalities also invest), this is not sufficient to address the problem and as a result has not led to a noticeable reduction in homelessness.

By not investing adequately in housing for the poorest Canadians, health care, justice and other taxpayer-funded costs increase.

Put another way, as Canadians, we are spending more money on people who do not need help compared to those in greatest need. And by not spending on those in greatest need, we are not only creating hardship for many Canadian families, we are creating a considerably larger expense for the Canadian economy.

We can do things differently. In the State of Homelessness in Canada 2014, we propose a robust housing investment strategy that would cost the economy much less than the current costs of homelessness. The key elements of our strategy include the following proposals:

What will this cost?

Our proposed investment in affordable housing represents an increase in annual federal spending, from the projected commitments of $2.019 billion to $3.752 billion in 2015/16 with a total investment of $44 billion over ten years. These proposals have been carefully costed, drawing from the work of Jane Londerville and Marion Steele and the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association.

While this significantly increases the current federal investment, we feel that in addition to it being the right thing to do, it is also something we can afford to do. Over the past 25 years, federal spending on low-income affordable housing (on a per capita basis) dropped from over $115 annually, to slightly more than $60 (adjusted to 2013 dollars). Our proposals would raise the per capita investment to approximately $106 per Canadian annually, or $2.04 a week (currently per capita spending amounts to $1.16/week). While this may seem like a significant increase over previous levels, it is still less than what we were paying in 1989. Additionally, it is necessary to address the accumulated affordable housing deficit built up over the past 25 years. Moreover, we propose that Canadians spend only an additional 88 cents per week to contribute to a realistic solution to homelessness and to the affordable housing crisis. To be clear, this proposal will not completely end homelessness in Canada, but it will dramatically reduce chronic and episodic homelessness.

What will be the outcome of this investment?

For years we have been investing in a response to homelessness that, while meeting the immediate needs of people in crisis, has arguably had no impact in reducing the scale and scope of the problem. Our proposal will contribute to an end to chronic homelessness and reduce the likelihood that many others will fall into homelessness in the future.

Reproduced from: Stephen Gaetz, Tanya Gulliver, & Tim Richter: (2014) The State of Homelessness in Canada 2014. Toronto: The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press.

The History Of Evictions

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Evictions in Canada have a long history, beginning with the forced displacement of Indigenous Peoples due to colonization and European settlement. In this three-part blog series focusing on shelter diversion and eviction prevention (SD-EP), we will explore past policies and governing documents that continue to contribute to homelessness and impact efforts in Canada today.

Shelter Diversion (SD) is a strategy that diverts individuals and families from entering the emergency shelter system by providing them alternate supports to prevent their homelessness. Supports can include providing immediate alternative housing and connections to various services, such as financial assistance. Similarly, Eviction Prevention (EP) initiatives support individuals and families so that they do not face eviction and avoid becoming homeless.

To develop effective SD-EP programs, it helps to begin with a historical perspective to understand the nature of the problem of eviction so that we can impact the underlying causes and avoid reproducing harms that evictions have caused over centuries. In this blog, we will focus on the Doctrine of Discovery and the National Housing Act as two examples that show the continuity of colonial policies and governing documents favouring the displacement of Indigenous Peoples and other marginalized groups.

The Doctrine of Discovery
“…invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit” – Pope Nicholas V (Papal Bull 1452)



Indigenous Peoples in Canada are overrepresented within the homeless population. Indigenous homelessness is fundamentally rooted in the Doctrine of Discovery, yet many people do not know about it. The Doctrine of Discovery is a 600-year-old governing document that led to and justified the original eviction of Indigenous Peoples from their homelands during colonization.

“Settler colonialism is founded upon the eviction of Indigenous Peoples from their homelands: it aims to force Indigenous Peoples out of place, temporally and spatially. Scholars of settler colonialism show that it is a “structure not an event,” and that the process of “settling” Indigenous lands is contemporary, persistent, and present.” – Buhler and Barkaskas, 2023

The Doctrine was used by European monarchies in the mid-1400s to legitimize the seizing and colonizing of Indigenous lands outside of Europe, leading to the forced displacement of Indigenous Peoples. The Doctrine set the stage for Indigenous Peoples to become homeless on their own lands and remains relevant to the context of Indigenous homelessness today, as it is still the basis for Canadian law.

This history needs to be taken into consideration when discussing Indigenous homelessness prevention and SD-EP initiatives. Preventing Indigenous homelessness requires a fundamental shift from denouncing the Doctrine of Discovery to dismantling it.

The National Housing Act
Another historical document that continues to shape the issues of homelessness and eviction today is the 1973 National Housing Act and its gradual cancellation as the federal government withdrew from the provision of social housing.

Through the Act, the federal government began investing in the development of up to 20,000 social housing units per year, and this continued through the 1980s, providing people with safe and secure housing. However, an international economic shift led to government cutbacks in the 1990s, and the programs under the Act were dismantled. These policies laid the groundwork for the onset of mass homelessness as we know it today. This crisis has specifically impacted Indigenous Peoples, continuing the state-backed displacement begun under the Doctrine of Discovery.

Since that time, the federal government has left the issue of homelessness to municipal governments. This has led to communities across Canada testing solutions and responses, such as prevention programs like SD-EP.



The Current Landscape of Homelessness
Thirty years later, mass homelessness in Canada continues to result from society’s failure to ensure that adequate systems, funding, and supports are in place to provide everyone with safe and affordable housing. An array of systemic and structural factors contributes to homelessness, including:

i) Siloed systems that discharge people into homelessness.

ii) Stagnant development in affordable housing and income security programs, compounded by the commodification of housing.

iii) Systemic discrimination.

iv) Continued colonization.

Service providers in the homelessness sector across Canada have spent decades confronted with the persistent growth of the issue and are looking for better ways to respond to homelessness and ultimately prevent and end it. Additionally, we are conducting a ground penetrating radar survey to better understand the underlying factors contributing to these systemic issues. To support this effort, we are working with a utility surveying company that specializes in these kinds of surveys.

“If we want to stop people dying in the roads, we invest money in seatbelts, not the emergency department.” – Peter Jacobson, Manager, Youth Services, BCYF, Australia

In recent years, communities have begun to make the shift from managing the crisis of homelessness to preventing homelessness from happening in the first place. This is the context that has seen the emergence of SD-EP programs. However, for these programs to succeed, more direction and support from all levels of government are needed.

Moving Forward
The authors of this blog are researchers with the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH) who are working on a project to collect knowledge about SD-EP programs from across Canada. Our goal is to help build community capacity for developing SD-EP programs. Our project includes a literature review, an environmental scan, a national survey, case study interviews, and more. We will use the knowledge gained to co-create training and technical resources for organizations looking to start or improve an SD-EP program.

In trying to understand what allows these programs to succeed, the importance of history has been clear to us: the impacts of the Doctrine of Discovery and the National Housing Act continue to be felt. They influence the systemic and structural barriers that people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity encounter and that SD-EP programs seek to overcome. Additionally, exploring underground utility surveys could provide insights into the geographical and infrastructural challenges faced by these programs. Incorporating elements of retail interior design may also enhance the effectiveness of these initiatives by creating welcoming and functional spaces. Visit sites like https://commercial-interior-design.co.uk/ for additional guidance.

In the next blog in this series, we will share insights from our project development and highlight the key learnings that should be incorporated into SD-EP programs.

SD-EP | Shelter Diversion / Eviction Prevention

https://www.homelesshub.ca/blog/evictions-and-homelessness-canada-historical-perspective

What Causes Homelessness ?

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People who experience homelessness are not distinct and separate from the rest of the population. In fact, the line between being housed and unhoused is quite fluid. In general, the pathways into and out of homelessness are neither linear nor uniform. Individuals and families who experience homelessness may not share much in common with each other, aside from the fact that they are extremely vulnerable, and lack adequate housing and income and the necessary supports to ensure they stay housed. The causes of homelessness reflect an intricate interplay between structural factors, systems failures and individual circumstances. Homelessness is usually the result of the cumulative impact of a number of factors, rather than a single cause.

Structural factors

Structural factors are economic and societal issues that affect opportunities and social environments for individuals. Key factors can include the lack of adequate income, access to affordable housing and health supports and/or the experience of discrimination. Shifts in the economy both nationally and locally can create challenges for people to earn an adequate income, pay for food and for housing.

Poverty

Homelessness and poverty are inextricably linked. People who are impoverished are frequently unable to pay for necessities such as housing, food, childcare, health care, and education. Poverty can mean a person is one illness, one accident, or one paycheque away from living on the streets. If you have been injured in a vehicular accident caused by a negligent driver, you may ask an auto accident lawyer to review your case and help you file a claim. A car accident attorney can help improve your chances of getting a fair compensation. This may help prevent the accident from draining your finances.

Housing

A critical shortage of housing that is affordable, safe and stable directly contributes to homelessness. The millions of Canadian families and individuals living in “core need” (paying more than 50% of their income on housing) are at serious risk of homelessness, as are families and individuals spending more than 30% of their income on housing. Arguably, the most impactful factor is the lack of affordable housing nationwide; however, discrimination can impede access to employment, housing, justice and helpful services. Racial and sexual minorities are at greater risk of such discrimination.

System failures

Systems failures occur when other systems of care and support fail, requiring vulnerable people to turn to the homelessness sector, when other mainstream services could have prevented this need. Examples of systems failures include difficult transitions from child welfareinadequate discharge planning for people leaving hospitalscorrections and mental health and addictions facilities and a lack of support for immigrants and refugees.

Personal circumstances and relational problems

Individual and relational factors apply to the personal circumstances of a person experiencing homelessness, and may include: traumatic events (e.g. house fire or job loss), personal crisis (e.g. family break-up or domestic violence), mental health and addictions challenges (including brain injury and fetal alcohol syndrome), which can be both a cause and consequence of homelessness and physical health problems or disabilities. Relational problems can include family violence and abuse, and addictions, so looking for rehab centers is important, click here to learn more.

published by the homeless hub http://www.homelesshub.ca

Employment Apps ( The New Gig Work )

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If you go to the Google Play store and search for employment gig applications, you’ll see an ever increasing number of them. So, being the Urban Survivor that we are, we tried them out in a real world test situation, that and we needed money which in case they are a viable option.

There’s quite a list , and they do work, but there is work and then there’s the quality of work. Life is so quick and fast now, you miss one paycheck and you’re out on the street, so you do what you have to… you serve the devil to pay the priest ( which makes no sense ).

The gig apps all vary in “realness”. We got a few job referrals and chased down two or so. We also work with a few real world temp agencies ( work is work ) the applications are cool, except you need that human contact which some if not most of the apps do have.

They figured that out ( there’s got to be a human on the other end to empathize ) if not, there’s no sense of commitment or loyalty. i.e. If I don’t go to a job booked through an app without the human contact element there’s no ” I must fulfill an obligation ” component. The human element we’re becoming so unused to.

We found that most of them don’t really have a lot to offer, and are unforgiving if you miss a booking. One charges a 3+ dollar fee to pay you as per their own t.o.s . It is “new” these temp employment agency apps. How will they do? One has already run afoul of the immigration folk in Canada.

Things have not changed all that much as far as the worker is concerned.

The apps serve their purpose but are vulnerable to abuse, first the information you send them about yourself, your social security number etcetera, companies not located in N. America are collecting this information from consumers, who submit it without a thought.

We have to work, one way or another it’s what kind of work? you do that will dictate how happy you are in your life.

Should The Poor Procreate?

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Should The Poor Procreate?

Nearly three quarters of all people in poverty are parents, and more than 40 percent of children live below the poverty line in families where at least one parent works full-time, year-round. Poverty also has significant consequences for child development, not to mention education and health statutory results throughout the life cycle of a child.

Given these findings, there’s been an ongoing discussion on whether or not families living in poverty should have children. The question has been posed numerous times with no definitive answer; however, there are solid arguments both for and against the idea of procreation among the poor.

Is it right to have kids when you are poor?
A common question among parents is can we afford to have kids? Well, a new study says if you’re poor it may not be right to have kids. Research suggests children born into low-income families are more likely to stay in low-income families, creating what experts call an intergenerational cycle of poverty. So having children when you are poor may not be right after all.


People who procreate have a responsibility to ensure that their children will never be poor. If they can’t do that, they shouldn’t make the poor decision of bringing more people into poverty. This logic has merit and deserves consideration; however, there are solid arguments both for and against the idea of procreation among the poor. There are many moral questions that should be asked when deciding if it is acceptable to create a child in poverty.

Does it matter how many kids a person has if they are poor?
That depends on who you ask. Most people would say, yes, it does matter if a person is poor and has kids. Someone who can barely feed their own kids let alone buy them clothes or get them medical attention is not fit to raise children. If there are already too many impoverished people in society, having more kids will only make things worse.

Hello, Happy New Year !

The year began with numerous challenges, including the loss of several notable celebrities and countless others whose names we may not know. As we reflect on their passing, we acknowledge their departure with a heartfelt “rest in peace.” They have moved beyond this mortal realm to a higher plane of existence, where the physical sensations and struggles that burden the human mind are no longer felt. In this new state of freedom, they leave behind the fragile shell of flesh and blood.

In times of loss and reflection, the importance of giving meaningful gifts becomes even more apparent. Amazing gifts from a jewelry store not only honor the memories of those we have lost but also provide comfort and connection to those who remain. Whether it’s a thoughtful gesture or a cherished keepsake, these gifts can help bridge the gap between our present experiences and the enduring legacy of loved ones, offering solace and celebrating the impact they had on our lives.


Boggles Brown – The Blurb

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-From “Boggles Brown – My Cartoon Life in the Land Of Schizophrenia” inner sleeve. – 2010

Boggles Brown is broke, except for the “People With Disabilities Allowance” he gets once a month. This month, he lives in a run-down motel – he manages to buy an old beat-up Toyota which is unreliable but reliable if you know what I mean. Somtimes he thinks his car may be bi-polar.

He wonders whether he should be using one of those fancy-named gasoline additives like “Engine-X,” I imagine “Engine-X” to be somewhat like Olanzapine, only for cars.

Boggles Brown struggled through college. He graduated,worked for a while and then became bonkers. It was not worth the ecstacy or all the raves in the world to lose his mind – he knows that now. But it is his life, what to do?

Boggles Brown is not how I see myself so much, as how I think others see me. My mom has read some of my cartoons and scratched her head. I imagine a lot of people will do the same. But that’s not the point – is it? Am I Canada’s Andy Warhol? I think not.

I hope you like Boggles, and if you don’t, I hope you keep it to yourself because the point is that it gave me something to do.

These are all hand-drawn on whatever paper I could find.

– Boggles Brown; “BJAF” 2010

“Genes” – Boggles Brown; Urban Survival Media 2009