1. Perceptions or Misconceptions?
Homelessness
Perceptions or Misconceptions?

2. People who are homeless are lazy.
Common reasons people become homeless:
Violence or sexual abuse at home
Mental illness
Addictions
Poverty
Rarely do people choose to live on the streets.
In a study of street youth in 2002, 45.7% reported being physically attacked.
“The worst thing was not knowing where you were going to sleep. Who knows what’s going to happen to you.” (Mean Streets, p. 41)

3. People who are homeless just don’t want to get a job.
It’s hard to get a job, if :
you don’t have an address .
you don’t have a phone.
you don’t have transportation.
you have little education or training.
“If you don’t have an address, employers, I mean, they take a look at you and they think, if you’re not responsible enough to have an address, then you wouldn’t be responsible enough to be working.” Pierre (Mean Streets. P.212)

4. People who are homeless can stay in shelters.
Homeless Count Vancouver March 15, 2005
For women who are escaping violent family situations, there is a 66% shortage of safe houses or transition-home spaces.
Shelters, safe houses and transition houses turned away 169 adults and 6 children on count night.
Homeless persons can be turned away if they are too young to stay in an adult shelter, or there are no beds available for their gender.
44% of street homeless said they did not stay in shelters because of cleanliness, rules, noise, theft, restrictions on length of stay and other issues.

5. People who are homeless are alcoholics or drug addicts.
Some homeless people suffer from addictions to alcohol and drugs.
Sometimes addiction is a cause of homelessness.
Sometimes homelessness is a cause of addiction.
Recovery from addiction, without a place to live, is unlikely.
“she's 18 and has been homeless and on the streets of Vancouver since she turned 16 and was kicked out of a foster home...Unable to qualify for social assistance, she's turned to prostitution for income and multiple drugs to forget…” —Interviewer On our streets and in our shelters…Results of the 2005 Greater Vancouver Homeless Count

6. People who are homeless are crazy.
Some homeless people suffer from mental illness.
Sometimes mental illness is a cause of homelessness.
Sometimes homelessness is a cause of mental illness.
“Once the mentally ill are on the street, it's nearly impossible to treat them... "You can't bring their medication to them because you can't find them."
(Housing is) the key . "It transforms them. Housing heals."
“A soft place off the mean streets”, Chronicle Herald, The (Halifax, NS); 11/17/2006, pA5

7. Homeless people are easy to recognize.
Many homeless people do not look or act like the stereotypical homeless person.
“We are sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers. The look of hatred is very hard to take.”
(Woman, Calgary 1999) Homelessness, p.34

8. People who are homeless aren’t my problem.
Cost of homelessness
The average homeless person uses $4,714 a year in healthcare - the average Canadian citizen, $2,633.
CBC: The Fifth Estate – No Way Home
Community Decline
Homelessness and poverty discourage participation in a community. As a community declines, addiction, crime and violence grow.
Homelessness affects all of us.
“You can house people who are homeless either because it's just the right thing to do—from a humane, compassionate approach. Or you can do it because it's the smart thing to do.” Sam Tsemberis, Pathways to Housing

9. Change Your Perceptions
Hannah Taylor’s Vision.
“No one will have to eat out of a garbage can;
everyone will have a home.”

10. Sources
"A Soft Place Off the Mean Streets." The Chronicle Herald 17 Nov. 2006, sec. A: 5. EBSCO.
Hagan, John, and Bill McCarthy. Mean Streets: Youth Crime and Homelessness. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.
Layton, Jack. Homelessness: the Making and Unmaking of a Crisis. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2000.
"No Way Home." The Fifth Estate. CBC. 29 Apr <
"Pathways to Housing." NOW. PBS. 29 Apr <