I have never been homeless, but I have come close many times in my life. Enough to understand we are all just one bad month away from sleeping on the streets and by sheer luck, I have managed to keep a roof over my head…but living in poverty for many years, that was always a struggle for me.
I spent the last two years of my time in Brampton working downtown, interacting with and helping homeless and vulnerable people. I see on a daily basis how terrible the impact of no affordable housing and lack basic living income affects this population
. I could have ended up homeless in 2017. I was living in Ottawa on a little hamlet surrounded by the Ottawa River. In May that year there was unprecedented flooding and I watched my entire neighbourhood become engulfed and swallowed by the river water, including my home and the home of my elderly family members who lived next door.
Both homes were destroyed and this left us living in hotels for weeks while we tried to figure out what to do. Only because of family members did I manage to maintain a roof over my head. At the time I was on ODSP and I had no idea how I was going to rebuild my life.
By sheer luck, my credit card company called me and offered me a $6,000 credit increase. So, I rebuilt myself using credit and what little help we received from the Red Cross. After settling my family into their new home, I realized I couldn’t remain there. The trauma we all endured during this time worsened the triggers I experienced and I couldn’t stay.
I packed up what little I had and moved to Kingston where my best friend was living. I rented a one-bedroom apartment in the roughest part of town, because that’s what I could “afford”. I worked towards getting my taxi license and worked part time for awhile. Unfortunately, having undiagnosed bipolar disorder and having gone through the trauma, it was incredibly hard for me to maintain any steady work, so I remained on ODSP. Due to ongoing harassment from a neighbour, I needed to find another place to live. I managed to find one-bedroom apartment, but now my rent increased from $850 to $1,000, which I was trying to survive on my ODSP which was a measly $1,100. So, I continued to live on credit.
Then, for the first time in my life, I became hypomanic, which progressed to mania, and then finally I had a psychotic break. This began in November 2018 and I remained quite ill for a few months before I came crashing down into a terrible, overmedicated depression.
March 2019 came and so did COVID. Because of my psychotic break, I had maxed out the credit cards. By the time my yearly lease was up, I could no longer survive paying rent on my ODSP income. I filed for bankruptcy, packed up my apartment and moved back to living with the family members I had left two years prior.
When the Government announced CERB payments of $2,000 a month for people who couldn’t work due to COVID, I was absolutely crushed and angry. Here I was, packing up my second apartment in two years because I couldn’t pay the rent, bills and buy food on ODSP, but people who weren’t struggling to survive were being given two thousand dollars a month?! Any faith I had in our government went straight out the window. The government showed us what they thought of those living in poverty vs. those that are able to contribute to society. In my opinion it was a giant slap in the face to anyone living on the streets, or those struggling in poverty.
The homelessness and affordable housing crisis are getting worse. As winter approaches, we WILL start finding bodies. Not just corpses, but human beings who deserved to live, deserved human rights, deserved to be loved by the community that turns a blind eye regularly to their suffering. Government needs to wake up, step up and TAKE ACTION to rectify this abysmal situation.
If you think we are living in a first world country, you are absolutely blind to the people living in third world conditions right here in our community.