Homelessness in Waterloo Region

Letter to the Prime Minister, May 17, 2004

The Right Honourable Paul Martin,

The Waterloo Region Community Homelessness Network is a non-partisan collective of housing providers, service agencies, businesspersons, local governments, funders, volunteers, persons with lived homelessness experience, and other concerned citizens. Under a slightly different name, we authored our region’s Community Homelessness Plan as required by the Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative, and welcomed that funding warmly. We advocate with all levels of government concerning the needs of the homeless, those recovering from homelessness, and those at risk of becoming homeless. We believe public awareness and education are key components to ending homelessness. We value sustained solutions, and doing things properly over doing them quickly or cheaply. Finally, we would rather collaborate with governments than fight them.

Mr. Prime Minister, the Waterloo Region Community Homelessness Network strongly endorses the recommendations made by Campaign 2000 in their recent social audit, Pathways to Progress: Structural Solutions to Address Child Poverty. Further, we urge you to commit our nation to a course of action, which will end child poverty within five years. Ending child poverty in Canada should be our nation’s top priority. Make ending child poverty your legacy.

Should you be returned to office in the coming election, the first ministers should be gathered to create a comprehensive, co-operative, and coherent long-term strategy to end child poverty. But talk is cheap, and first ministers are known for doing a lot of talking. The nation needs to see real concrete actions that will make a difference on the ground. The structural changes needed to end child poverty will take time. But the time to begin is now.

The majority of voters today can remember the late Pierre Elliot Trudeau, who said, “Canada must be a just society.” The intense outpouring of emotion at M. Trudeau’s passing away spoke eloquently to his influence on our national psyche. Millions of Canadians accept the late Prime Minister Trudeau’s philosophy as their own. A just society is Canada, as Canadians wish it were. Yet, today, decades after M. Trudeau first voiced this fundamental philosophy, one in six Canadian children live in poverty. How can such a society rightly be called just?

Mr. Prime Minister, opinion polls consistently show social programs are high on Canadian voter’s priority list. Fighting poverty, in particular, consistently ranks in the top five priorities in such polls. Canadians will support much higher spending on social programs. Canadians accept as axiomatic that we get the social programs we are willing to pay for. But, monies spent on social programs are not an expense. They are an investment. Studies show it costs far less to lift a person, or family, out of poverty, than it does to maintain him in his poverty.

By your own choice, Mr. Prime Minister, you are about to face the Canadian voters. Recently published social audits and studies have focused public attention on social programs, most particularly in Ontario. Ontario voters are thinking about health care, affordable housing, homelessness, and poverty. Ontario, with its 103 federal ridings, may well decide this election. The Waterloo Region Community Homelessness Network urges you, Mr. Prime Minister, take a strong stand in favor of renewed investment in our nation’s social programs.
Sincerely,

Charles Nichols
Advocacy Chair
Waterloo Region Community Homelessness Network