风萧萧_Frank
以文会友
露宿街头，无家可归的人在加拿大各省剧增
社会机构和倡导者表示，利率上升和高通胀正在将更多加拿大人推向无家可归的境地。
自己曾经无家可归的查兹史密斯说，他的 BeTheChangeYYC 街头外展小组的一些客户已经在等候经济适用房名单上五个多月了。
他说，随着利率和通货膨胀率的上升，这可能会使更难租到房子。
BeTheChangeYYC 的创始人史密斯说：“我担心的是，我们会看到人们违约进入本已拥挤的租赁市场，而且我们会看到整个加拿大的无家可归者人数增加。”
本月早些时候的一个晚上，在卡尔加里市中心，史密斯和一群志愿者推着装满一袋装午餐的货车，包括代餐、维生素粉和格兰诺拉麦片。由于当晚气温达到约 -20 摄氏度，他们还分发了袜子、急救毯、防水布和帐篷。
在他们到达街区的尽头之前，他们被一群大约 80 人包围，等待分发食物和暖和的衣服。
史密斯和其他志愿者每周出去几次，为有需要的人提供物资。
“当你同时来这么多人时，这很困难。这对我们现在来说是相当典型的，”史密斯在与数十人打招呼时说，其中许多人他都知道名字。
他还与新客户进行了交谈，其中包括一名来自埃德蒙顿的男子和另一名来自温尼伯的男子。
史密斯说，他的团队去年帮助了超过 17,000 人，其中许多人是露宿街头生活的新手。
“那是可怕的部分，”他说。“我和很多刚接触无家可归者的人谈过，你马上就知道了，因为他们问你，‘避难所在哪里？’ 他们没有听说过住房清单，所以你问他们，‘你是哪里人？’”
加拿大消除无家可归联盟首席执行官蒂姆·里希特 (Tim Richter) 表示，无家可归者行业正处于危机之中，而且只会变得更糟。
“我认为我们正面临四重打击，它正在推动一波新的无家可归者的浪潮，并使无家可归者对已经在那里的人来说更加糟糕，”里希特说。
他说，负担得起的住房已经严重短缺，但大流行病、更高的生活成本和阿片类药物危机的影响也挥之不去。
他说：“通货膨胀让更多人无家可归，并使无家可归变得更加危险和致命。”
10 月份在全国发布的饥饿统计报告显示，自 2019 年以来，阿尔伯塔省的食品银行使用量增加了 73%，是全国最高的。
“艾伯塔省的增长实际上只是一场低工资、高房价、高食品价格、燃料和公用事业价格的结合，所有这些都在世界有点崩溃的时候聚集在一起。”艾伯塔省食品银行首席执行官阿里安娜斯科特说。
“全国各地都非常相似。你看到全国每个省份都在增长和挣扎。”
卡尔加里食品银行临时总裁迈克尔帕斯玛表示，对食品的需求是前所未有的。但我们能够养活尽可能多的前来上门领取食物的人，”帕斯玛说。
“需求上升。如果你看一下去年的同一时间，它会高出了大约 30%。”
他说，食品银行正试图在繁忙的圣诞节期间将其产量增加到每天近 500 个篮子。
通货膨胀也对加拿大的老年人产生了巨大影响。
加拿大全国老年人权益保护组织 CanAge 的首席执行官劳拉·坦布林·瓦茨 (Laura Tamblyn Watts) 表示，加元并没有像过去那样紧张，甚至中等收入的老年人也第一次面临贫困。
“我是把钱花在取暖费上，还是买食物和药物？我们所看到的可以用“热或吃”来概括。如果人们每个月只有几百元来管理？你没有太多选择，”Tamblyn Watts 说。
“这意味着中等收入（收入者）比以往任何时候都更难过。（低收入的人）面临着可怕的处境，包括我们曾经遇到过的最高比例的无家可归的老年人。”
'Perfect storm' of inflation, high prices driving more into homelessness: advocates
Volunteers with BeTheChangeYYC hand out supplies to homeless people in downtown Calgary on Feb. 3, 2021. (CityNews photo)By Bill Graveland, Dec 19, 2022
Social agencies and advocates say rising interest rates and high inflation are pushing more Canadians into homelessness.
Chaz Smith, who was once homeless himself, said some of the clients of his BeTheChangeYYC street outreach group have been on waiting lists for affordable housing for more than five months.
He said with interest rates and inflation on the rise, it could make the rental market more difficult to enter.
“My fear is we’re going to see people default into the rental market that’s already crowded and we’re going to see an increase in homelessness throughout all of Canada,” said Smith, who founded BeTheChangeYYC.
On an evening earlier this month in downtown Calgary, Smith and a group of volunteers were wheeling wagons full of bagged lunches, including meal replacements, vitamin powder and granola. They also handed out socks, emergency blankets, tarps and tents as temperatures that night reached about -20 C.
Before they reached the end of the block, they were surrounded by a group of about 80 peoplewaiting to be handed food and warmer clothing.
Smith and the other volunteers venture out several times a week to provide supplies for those in need.
“It is difficult when you have so many coming at once. This is fairly typical for us right now,” Smith said as he greeted dozens of people, many who he knew by name.
He also spoke to new clients, including one man from Edmonton and another from Winnipeg.
Smith said his group helped more than 17,000 last year and many of them are new to life on the street.
“That’s the scary part,” he said. “I talked to quite a few people who are new to homelessness and you know right away because they’re asking you, ‘where are the shelters?’ They haven’t heard of the housing list and so you ask them, ‘where are you from?'”
Tim Richter, CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, said the homeless sector is in crisis and it’s only going to get worse.
“I think we’re facing a quadruple whammy that’s driving a wave of new homelessness and making homelessness much worse for the people who are already there,” Richter said.
He said there was already an affordable housing shortage, but there are also the lingering effects of the pandemic, the higher cost of living and the opioid crisis.
“You’ve got this perfect storm of terrible news driving people into homelessness and making homelessness, as it is, much more dangerous and more lethal,” he said.
“Homelessness is a kind of a slow-motion crisis.”
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Food banks are also seeing a spike in need, especially in Alberta.
The Hunger Count report, which came out nationally in October, showed Alberta saw a 73 per cent increase in food bank usage since 2019 — the highest across the country.
“The increase in Alberta is really just a perfect storm of low wages, loss of wages, high housing prices, high prices for food and fuel and utilities and all of that coming together at a time when the world was kind of collapsing down on top of us,” said Arianna Scott, the CEO of Food Banks Alberta.
“It’s very similar across the country. Every province across the country you’re seeing increases and struggles.”
Michael Pasma, the interim president of the Calgary Food Bank, said the demand is unprecedented.
“We’re seeing a demand that we’ve not seen before, so it is stretching our resources but we’re able to feed as many people who are coming to our door,” Pasma said.
“Demand is up. If you look at the same time last year, it would be about 30 percent higher.”
He said the food bank is attempting to increase its output to almost 500 hampers a day with the busy Christmas season.
Inflation is also having a dramatic effect on older people in Canada.
Laura Tamblyn Watts, the CEO of CanAge, Canada’s national seniors’ advocacy organization, said dollars aren’t stretching as far as they did and, for the first time, even middle-income seniors are facing poverty.
“Do I put my money on the heating bill or do I buy food and medications? What we are seeing can be summed up with ‘heat or eat.’ If people only have a few hundred dollars a month to manage through ? you don’t have a lot of choices,” said Tamblyn Watts.
“What it means is middle-income (earners) are feeling it harder than ever. (People with) lower income are facing dire circumstances, including the highest rate of homeless seniors we’ve ever had.”
