Danger! The "Shelter Trap"

Think It Couldn't Happen To You?

So, you're "normal" - you've got a job and an apartment - not like those smelly "homeless people" you see asking for spare change and who probably live in some kind of a "shelter".  You could never end up like that - or could you? Just how close are you to falling into the shelter trap?

Banks and financial advisors tell us to keep at least three months worth of bill-paying and living expenses saved for a rainy day.  If you lose your job this security blanket should tide you over until you find a new one.  But how many of us really keep three months' worth of cash on hand?  What if it takes longer to find that new job?  Just hope and pray you don't lose your apartment, condominium or house.  Ending up in the emergency housing shelter system is not something you want to experience. Tightening your belt and cutting down on luxuries may allow Employment Insurance to tide you over for a few months, but eventually your money runs out and you max out your credit cards and line of credit.  What then?   Well, we live in the modern welfare state, so you can go on social assistance.  "Ontario Works" as it is called now, or Welfare as it used to be known, will provide a single individual without children a whopping total of $520 per month.  Considering one-bedroom apartments in Ottawa start around $700, forget the luxury of keeping your old place. Reluctantly, you give up your home, put your furniture in storage, and start "couch-surfing" - going through your address book for friends and relations who might put you up for a few nights.  Of course, $325 of Ontario Works' $520 is the "shelter allowance" and you receive that only if you're paying rent.  But now you're only eligible for $195, known as the "street allowance" or "basic needs", to keep body and soul together.  However, you've heard of "homeless shelters" and dimly remember hearing something about the Salvation Army and other charities providing free beds for the needy.  Boy, are you in for a surprise.... As soon as you stay one night in the "shelter" (you have three to choose from in Ottawa if you're an adult male; only one if you're an adult female), the computer that keeps track of such things kicks you off the street allowance and starts you on the "personal needs allowance".  This is a total of one hundred and sixteen dollars per month, and it's doled out at the rate of $3.86 for each night you actually stay at the shelter.  As in your $116 per month is docked by $3.86 each night you couch surf at a friends or stay with a kindly aunt.  Twenty-four nights at a shelter in a month will give you the princely sum of ninety-two dollars and change. This is what poverty and homeless-rights activists mean by the "shelter trap".  How is anyone ever supposed to get out of a homeless shelter once they find themselves inside one?  What's surprising is how much more expensive it is to keep you in a shelter instead of in, say, a rooming house on your own.  At $520 per month,  the single adult rate for Ontario Works provides $325 for "shelter" and $195 for all the other necessities of life.  But the government pays the shelter a lot more  - the current rate is over $41 per night, or more than $1200 per month.  That's right -  the shelter system costs the taxpayer more than twice what the welfare system does.  The government, with funding split 80% by the province and 20% by the municipality, expects an individual to survive on $520 a month in private accommodation, but spends more than twice that to put you up in a shelter. If you're running a shelter, with each empty bed ¨costing¨ you $1200 per month, what incentive do you have to help people find a place to live?

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