Allyson Proulx wants people to know that she and Andy Cadotte do not speak for all of the volunteers in Forest City Food Not Bombs. They are just two people in a collective looking to create change in London, Ontario.

Forest City Food Not Bombs is a volunteer collective addressing food insecurity, poverty, and homelessness by providing free meals to those in need. On the last Saturday of every month, the group shares free soup with the London community. All of the soup is handmade by volunteers, using food that would otherwise be thrown out or freshly grown vegetables donated by Urban Roots London. Initially, they set up a table at London’s downtown Victoria Park for people to pick up their meals. But when volunteers saw how few people showed up in the winter, they started going mobile, hand-delivering food to encampments along the Deshkan Ziibi.

“Food Not Bombs, for me, is mutual aid…We’re not a charity,” says Proulx, who has volunteered with the group since the summer of 2023. “We’re not just ‘going to feed homeless people’, it’s ‘how do we work with people who are unhoused?’”

The Forest City group is one of many Food Not Bombs chapters worldwide. The U.S.-born collective was started in 1980 by a group of anti-nuclear activists in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Each Food Not Bombs group is a completely independent organization that operates according to their community’s needs. The groups are non-hierarchical, meaning that there are no leaders—everybody is a volunteer.

Previous iterations of London Food Not Bombs groups existed in 2008 and 2012, but fizzled out due to activists moving cities and pursuing different projects over the years. The current London chapter started in June 2023 by a crew of activists who were interested in seeing a movement like this come back to the city. “It’s such a powerful, beautiful thing to feed one another on multiple levels, like spiritually, emotionally, intellectually,” Proulx says.

In 2023, between 1,700 to 2,100 people were unhoused in London, according to a “snapshot” published by the city earlier this year. The data comes from the City of London’s “By-Name List,” which allows them to track the changing size and composition of their unhoused population. Over 350 people lived completely unsheltered, meaning they never stayed in emergency housing. In November 2023, there were 103 active encampments. This was the highest number of active encampments during the year, though it does not reflect the total number of tents in 2023.

“The thing about London is that everybody knows everybody,” says Cadotte, a current volunteer who was also part of the 2008 group. “There’s a real opportunity to come together as a community and decide a different path to take in our lives, rather than keep pursuing this path of capitalism.”

Cadotte and Proulx both say that the size of London and its geographic layout helps activism thrive. People live and work in close proximity with each other—plus, they are sharing similar lived experiences as working Canadians. “We’re all together in the sandbox,” says Cadotte.

Proulx also points to the land which London’s activism happens on. “The land itself dictates the activism on the land,” they say. “[There is] Deshkan Ziibi—the river that we live along—the nations that are here, the knowledge that we gained from them about what it means to decolonize and what it means to be in relationship with the food that grows from the land.”

On top of end-of-month meal services, Forest City Food Not Bombs has become a mainstay at advocacy events in the city, standing in solidarity and providing food in the process. As crowds filled the steps outside London City Hall to protest a proposed police budget increase in February or took to the streets of downtown London as part of ongoing Palestinian resistance, Forest City Food Not Bombs set up a plastic folding table with a cardboard sign advertising “free soup.”

Most recently, Food Not Bombs volunteers stood at the front gates of London’s Western University alongside striking graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). GTAs, represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada Local 610, are seeking a livable wage in the context of the maximum 10 hours per week they are allowed to work. “If you’re going to have collective resistance ongoing, you need to feed people so that they can continue to show up to these protests,” says Proulx.

Coming up on the group’s one year anniversary, Cadotte and Proulx both said they want Forest City Food Not Bombs to be sustainable as it continues to make change in the London community. “I don’t want to see the standards of success, like exponential growth—it’s not a stock market,” Proulx says. “I want it to grow into the ground.”

As Forest City Food Not Bombs moves into its second year, the group hopes to build its volunteer team and increase its activism, using the present to make change in London.

Simeonie Tuckatuck, 58, who has been living homeless in Montreal for three years, panhandles indoors at the Promenades Cathédrale near the McGill metro station in Montreal. Photo by Dario Ayala / Material republished with the express permission of: Montreal Gazette, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.

At any given time there are 150 to 200 Nunavik Inuit in Montreal accompanying a loved one receiving medical care. The lack of basic services in their northern communities forces a vast number of Inuit to fly south to receive treatment in the city. Once they arrive, many Inuit opt to stay in Montreal in an effort to avoid negative social situations at home.

After decades of horrific government programs targeted at altering the Inuit’s way of life, social and economic issues have inevitably arisen in formerly prosperous communities. Devastating repercussions stemming from residential schools, widespread sled dog slaughter, forced sedentism, and seal bans have shaken communities. For many, mental health has been severely affected; addiction, domestic violence, and alcohol abuse are symptomatic of the hardships experienced by many. Already difficult social situations are exacerbated by lack of adequate modern housing—almost half of families live in overcrowded or deteriorating homes.

Both positive and negative forces have led many Nunavik Inuit to seek new lifestyles in Montreal, be it for opportunities in education and employment, or to escape overcrowded or abusive homes. However, many find themselves in vulnerable situations in a new city vastly different from home, which has led to a disproportionate number of Inuit represented in the Montreal homeless community.

49% of Nunavik Inuit live in crowded homes. The housing crisis in Nunavik exacerbates health concerns and creates tension in families where abuse and addiction may already be a problem.

55% have a food insecure household. Fly-in only communities pay an exorbitant amount for imported food, and it is becoming harder to rely on traditional food sources.

39% have a regular family doctor. Most communities only have access to an outpost nurse, and hospitals and doctors’ offices often care for multiple communities at once.

446 sexual assaults were reported in 2017, almost 4% of the population. Many women report situations of domestic violence and sexual abuse to be the main reason they decide to migrate south.

60% of Nunavik residents flew to Montreal for health care-related reasons. About 8,000 people travelled south for things like cancer treatments, CAT scans, or surgeries that are simply not available in Nunavik.

10% of the Indigenous people in Montreal are Inuit. But Inuit people make up 45 percent of the Indigenous homeless population in the city. A disproportionate number of Inuit slip into homelessness after landing in Montreal.

71% of homeless Inuit said they would return home if housing conditions improved.

A rendering of the proposed shelter. Photo courtesy of the Salvation Army.

The Salvation Army is proposing an 892-square-metre “mega-shelter” in Ottawa’s Vanier neighbourhood that would provide temporary shelter beds for up to 350 people. The shelter would be the biggest in North America, featuring a special health care unit, a space for addictions recovery, permanent housing referrals, a dining facility, counselling, employment skills training, and more. The Salvation Army says the plan is an innovative and ambitious way to provide a safe space for Ottawa’s homeless. But housing advocates are skeptical.

THE LOGISTICS
It’ll cost the taxpayers of Ottawa $50 million and the city will have to rezone the property in question before any construction can begin. Currently, the space is zoned for residential and “traditional mainstreet”—a pedestrian-friendly strip of shops, restaurants, and services. But the Salvation Army is seeking an exemption, arguing that the shelter is only a small element of the facility.

THE STATE OF HOMELESSNESS IN OTTAWA
An estimated 7,200 people in Ottawa are homeless and/or living in shelters. Several of the city’s shelters are located in the Byward Market, a popular tourist destination.

THE CITY’S PLANS
The key component of Ottawa’s 10-year housing and homelessness plan, launched in 2014, is to use a housing-first approach to manage homelessness. According to the city’s website, “providing a person who is homeless with housing and the necessary supports to stay housed leads to a better quality of life and is far less costly than staying at an emergency shelter.” By 2024, the city plans to eliminate chronic homelessness and minimize emergency shelter stays to less than 30 days.

A “TREATMENT-FIRST” APPROACH
The Salvation Army’s proposed shelter ignores the city’s anti-poverty strategy. “What it communicates to me is [the Salvation Army] is still anchored in a treatment-first approach,” says Tim Aubry, a housing and homelessness researcher from Ottawa.

Research shows housing-first is twice as effective as treatment-first at helping people get out of homelessness. And with housing-first, “not surprisingly,” says Aubry, “individuals show improvement in functioning and quality of life associated with their exits from homelessness.”

A BAND-AID SOLUTION
San Diego tried a similar approach where charitable organizations ran large emergency shelters, and found it didn’t work. “We saw a nearly 19-percent increase of unsheltered homeless in the county,” wrote Michael McConnell for the San Diego City Beat. “It’s clear this model that focuses funding on the front-end, clogging our system with temporary shelters, has failed to resolve homelessness in our city.”

With evidence and political rhetoric backing housing-first, Aubry is perplexed as to why the city is potentially investing in more shelter beds. “If somebody’s homeless,” he says, “why wouldn’t you start with giving them a home?”

Toronto’s Sprott House. Photo by Amy van den Berg.

On any given night in Toronto, there are 1,000 to 2,000 homeless youth sleeping on streets or in shelters. Across Canada about 40,000 young people experience homelessness. Among them, approximately 25 to 40 percent self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer.

These are dangerously high numbers since it is estimated that only five to 10 percent of the population identify as LGBTQ. That’s why across Canada local and provincial governments are being pressured to step up and enact change. By the fall of 2015, the city of Toronto agreed to update its shelter standards, setting aside funds to open two transitional housing shelters specifically for LGBTQ youth. A few months prior, the province of Alberta drew up an official action plan to tackle the issue, outlining the current data (0.8 percent of the homeless population in Alberta identify as transgender) and offering up ways to support these youth, from gender-inclusive washroom signage to intervention methods. Around the same time the Boys and Girls Club of Calgary began the Aura Host Homes project—producing another first-of-its-kind moment—that pairs LGBTQ youth with local families in a safe and supported environment.

But a year and a half later, attention on the problem seems to have come to a halt. While research on the issue has improved, Alberta remains the only province to write up an official action plan. Meanwhile, LGBTQ youth are still overrepresented in shelters across the country. “We started doing the work which is really great, but we have to continue doing the work because obviously queer and trans youth homelessness is still a problem,” says the Centre of Addiction and Mental Health’s Alex Abramovich, who has played a main role in working to end LGBTQ youth homelessness.

Abramovich—particularly through his University of Toronto doctoral thesis “No Safe Place to Go,” which provided the first comprehensive overview of the unique needs of the population—added fuel to a fire that had been growing for years. Advocates on solving youth homelessness had been noticing the trend, but it wasn’t until Abramovich’s work was published in 2012 that the issue made its way into the public sphere. After years of campaigning with numerous community agencies, stakeholders, and political leaders, Abramovich’s comprehensive research and hunger for change began to make waves across the country. Shelters began prioritizing queer and trans youth while provincial and municipal governments felt the pressure to make policy changes. The Alberta government, in fact, personally requested that Abramovich help prepare the province’s focused response to end LGBTQ youth homelessness.

While many communities and municipal governments have made similar moves to address the problem in their districts, no other province has produced a specific action plan, despite the pressing need. In Ottawa alone, close to half of the city’s homeless youth identify as LGBTQ with little to no official supports available for them. “I think Ontario could really learn from the Alberta strategy,” says Abramovich, who hopes the trend will continue to spread across the country. “There needs to be more collaboration across sectors and looking at the different successful models.” Quebec and the Maritimes in particular, where there are no specific programs for LGBTQ homeless youth, could benefit from this. A 2016 plan to end youth homelessness in Saint John’s referenced Abramovich’s work and the Host Homes project as possible solutions, but provided nothing concrete.

Despite his research, Abramovich says gathering data on the matter remains difficult. Actual numbers of LGBTQ youth who experience homelessness remain elusive because many young people slip under the radar. It is reasonable, Abramovich says, to believe the figures are much higher. Youth who identify as LGBTQ frequently experience discrimination in the home and shelter system, and many are forced to leave their homes after coming out to their families. Once on the street they may avoid shelters where they are forced to submit to gender norms and can experience transphobia and homophobia by staff and other youth. This not only puts them at a higher risk of being chronically homeless, but forces them to rely on couch-surfing or adapt to life on the streets, which can lead to drug abuse and survival sex.

Many small-scale programs and projects are making headway across Canada’s cities. In late 2015 Vancouver’s RainCity Housing emerged as one of the first LGBTQ youth-specific projects to tackle the problem of homelessness. It was followed closely by the opening of YMCA’s Sprott House in Toronto in February 2016, which is Canada’s first transitional housing program for LGBTQ youth.

The trick is finding the right programs that work for a variety of cases. RainCity Housing has taken a housing-first approach, prioritizing getting youth off the street and building a support network where they feel safe. The staff work with every young person to figure out what living situation will suit them best, giving them choice and offering supports and referrals to deal with any mental health or substance abuse problems at their own pace. “We develop a model around each youth instead of fitting each youth into a model,” says RainCity Housing associate director Aaron Munro. “What we’re offering is permanent housing.” This approach differs from Sprott House, which acts as a youth shelter, and much more from the Egale Centre, Toronto’s second LGBTQ youth-exclusive shelter that is due to open in fall 2017 and will prioritize counselling.

There is still much work to be done. Most of these projects and programs are still in their early stages, and agencies are only able to serve handfuls of youth, who must go through competitive application processes to be considered. Sprott House, for example, only accepts youth ages 16 to 24 and offers 25 beds for a stay of up to one year. Many services are only structured toward aiding a particular subgroup within LGBTQ youth, such as those who are chronically and episodically homeless. This often excludes the possibility of helping those who may be in need of emergency shelter or who find themselves in dangerous situations because of a lack of alternative housing options.

Which approaches are working best for specific cases will become clearer over time, laying the groundwork for more and better programs to emerge, funds willing. Abramovich, for his part, isn’t done. “I think as a next step we have to look at how we can prevent this problem from happening in the first place and find ways of working within the school system and working with families,” he says. “We can’t just end homelessness, we have to be strategic about it.”

Just last month Abramovic’s new book Where Am I Going to Go?—co-authored with Jama Shelton, a social work professor in New York—became the first published academic text on youth LGBTQ homelessness. He is currently in the process of evaluating the progress of Sprott House’s first couple of years in operation to find out what is working and how other provinces can replicate that model.

Meanwhile, Aura Host Homes and RainCity are also beginning to see some results. “We’ve got young people who’ve been in the program now for two-and-a-half years who are exiting and working and going to school,” Munro says. “What we’re seeing are outcomes.”

As Canada tiptoes its way through what can only be described as an experimentation phase of addressing LGBTQ youth homelessness, attention and concern remains essential to sustaining the country’s hard-fought progress. “What we need is actually a wide range of services,” says Munro. “They’re young people but they’re smart and they know what they need. I think for too long our services have been forcing people into a box.”

The United Nations has declared this month Human Rights Month, with December 10 marking Human Rights Day. Consider it perfect timing: JayU’s fifth-annual human rights film festival kicks off tonight in Toronto, celebrating and visualizing human rights through 12 thought-provoking documentaries.

JayU founder and executive director Gilad Cohen says the program this year is especially holistic and representative of current issues getting coverage in the news, such as immigration, the refugee experience, homelessness, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights.

“We’re seeing a lot of talk lately about immigration and undocumented people, and we tend to think a lot of times this is affecting people in the U.S.,” Cohen says. “I’m excited for tonight to be able to turn that conversation into a local one and speak to someone who has been dealing with those challenges here at home.”

Specifically, the festival is premiering two films that deal with undocumented people and immigration: the Canadian premiere of Don’t Tell Anyone and the world premiere of Stateless, which focuses on a Canadian-born man who lost his citizenship after it was revoked by the government four years ago.

Cohen says attendees can look forward to films that talk about mental health in a more unconventional way. He recommends the film Prison Dogs, which tells the story of New York inmates that train puppies to become service dogs that are then handed over to war veterans suffering from PTSD.

In an effort to diffuse the heavy subject matter that comes with human rights issues and counter those feelings, each screening ends with a Q-and-A that Cohen says he hopes ensures people aren’t leaving the cinema depressed or overwhelmed in the safe space of the cinema, and that people can debrief together.

JayU has also partnered up with over 15 community organizations that will be present at the festival and have been chosen alongside films that deal with similar challenges, such as the AIDS Committee of York Region, Horizons for Youth, and Lifeline Syria.

“I hope that people walk away inspired,” Cohen says. “What we’re hoping is that people take what they feel after the film and take the time to speak to some of these community partners and find ways to contribute to some of the solutions that are already happening here in the city.”

If you go: The festival takes place this weekend, opening tonight at 6 p.m. Tickets are as low as $10 and all access passes are available for $30.

Photo by the Canadian Press/Paul Chiasson

The federal government is preparing to offer rental subsidies to homeless veterans as part of a draft strategy called Coming Home.

The plan is meant to address the staggering reality that almost 2,250 veterans use emergency shelters on a regular basis, according to a 2015 study by Employment and Social Development Canada. That amounts to almost three percent of the total Canadian homeless population.

Of the veterans who become homeless in Canada, factors such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), other mental health issues, and substance abuse typically play a role. What’s more: research from the University of Western Ontario shows that veterans are most vulnerable to homelessness one decade after leaving the service.

To tackle the problem, Veteran Affairs Canada (VAC) is hiring 309 new permanent staff across Canada between now and 2020. This includes 167 case managers and 101 disability benefits staff. “Additional staff will mean that the needed case management services will be able to be provided to more veterans, including those who are homeless or in crisis,” Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, told This in an email.

While details are scant on how VAC plans to tackle homelessness, we can look south of the border to a similar initiative that’s garnered some success.

In 2010, U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs launched Opening Doors, a federal strategic plan to end veteran homelessness. Opening Doors boasts health, housing, and job support for veterans using the housing first model. The idea is that once veterans have stable, permanent housing, they are better equipped to deal with factors like unemployment, addiction, and mental health challenges. Many studies show that housing first programs drive significant reductions in the use of crisis services, and ultimately help people improve their health and social outcomes. The U.S. veteran homelessness rate has dropped 50 percent since Opening Doors launched.

Canada has even further to go to end veteran homelessness. On top of housing subsidies, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised almost $300 million for a new plan for veterans, and also promised to re-instate pension programs, which were replaced by a lump-sum payment in 2006. With a draft of Coming Home expected to be made public by the end of 2016, it remains to be seen how bold Canada will be in its plans to house veterans.

For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, vibrant cities, safe spaces, peaceful collaboration, and more—we encouraged our writers to dream big, to hope, and to courageously share their ideas and wish lists for our collective better future. Here’s to another 50 years!

It’s time to re-envision housing in Canada. Many of our challenges can be solved through innovation: we must not look to old models to solve our current problems. After all, it’s our current model that’s leading to mass homelessness.

No civilized group of people should allow that to happen to their neighbours, and we shouldn’t tolerate inaction. Let’s make our number one priority to help every homeless person in Canada. Some will need mental health support, some will need an economic solution, others will be suffering from addiction or abuse. Housing should be a right in Canada, like health care or education. It’s ridiculous that we will pay tens of thousands of dollars in hospital costs for a homeless person, over and over again, but do not help them pay their rent and end that cycle.

Secondly, let’s acknowledge there’s a growing population whose housing needs are not being served by the private sector, non-profits or government. Sadly, among this group are average working-class families, particularly young families, but it also includes immigrant and refugee families, students, First Nations, and single mothers. The cost of land in urban areas has made home ownership unattainable for many and increased the pool of renters. Worse yet, because there have been few incentives to build rental housing, low vacancy rates mean renting has become expensive, inadequate, or unavailable. Non-profit affordable housing or public housing should assist those who have fallen through the cracks. Yet, the abandonment of government funding for housing creates wait lists so long they defy credulity—too many end up homeless.

The confluence of these events has meant that much of the new private supply generated in both ownership and rental has been in high-end studio and one-bedroom suites. With their high costs and small size, these options aren’t suitable for many of the population types mentioned above. As we embark upon a new national housing strategy, an expanded non-profit housing sector could be the answer to many of these challenges. By removing the profit motive, the cost of developing housing is instantly cheaper, and by placing the burden of developing this housing into community groups there is an incentive to respond to the needs of families and others unserved by the market. In addition, unlike government-run housing, nonprofits have less bureaucracy, decisions are less political, and they have the ability to raise money from donations and volunteers. Expanding this model to serve average families, immigrants, and students instead of just vulnerable populations could be the key to ensuring that we have diverse, affordable, community-connected housing in the long-term.

Innovation will also mean looking to the sharing economy and assessing whether more communal living options could become mainstream. While shared gyms, pools, and laundry have been commonplace for years, we must now explore the limits of what level of sharing is marketable and attainable. Would tenants and owners be willing to accept quality over quantity by sharing their kitchens, living rooms, and more? Perhaps everything other than bedrooms should be reconsidered and we should look to new design options to maximize the utility of those spaces. Many of these things happen organically in repurposed homes or for roommates, but it’s time to re-examine it through a design and zoning lens in purpose-built rentals or condos.

Innovation in housing has to mean more than renting out your spare room or adding a Murphy bed. The next era is ripe for ideas on finance, design, and management. However, it’s going to take cooperation from all levels of government and a willingness to uncouple ourselves from some centuries of nostalgia about what a house looks like, what ownership looks like, and what our basic rights and entitlements are. If so, we may find a new era of opportunity, innovation, and our most important new social program.

For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, vibrant cities, safe spaces, peaceful collaboration, and more—we encouraged our writers to dream big, to hope, and to courageously share their ideas and wish lists for our collective better future. Here’s to another 50 years!

As a wealthy Western nation, Canada enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world. Yet, there are truths about our country that are unfathomable: we have an unaddressed lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and two-spirit (LGBTQ2S) youth homelessness crisis; widespread homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia are an everyday reality; and, because of this, queer and trans youth who experience homelessness often report feeling safer on the streets than in shelters.

This needs to change. It is not enough to encourage young people to be themselves and promise them “it gets better.” We have an ethical and moral obligation to make it better now. We cannot afford to wait.

Canada needs a national strategy that addresses the issue of LGBTQ2S youth homelessness and meets the needs of this population. Consider the following quote, which illustrates an all too common narrative: “I have no place I feel safe. There’s nowhere to go, and I thought there would be because this is Toronto. If the rest of Ontario has nowhere for me to go I thought Toronto would at least have somewhere.”

LGBTQ2S youth are overrepresented in the homeless youth population, making up as much as 40 percent of homeless youth. Identity-based family conflict, resulting from coming out as LGBTQ2S, is a major contributing factor to youth homelessness. Once in the shelter system—meant to support all young people— LGBTQ2S youth often report minimal support and high rates of homophobic and transphobic violence.

It has taken many years of advocacy, activism, and research for this issue to gain attention and support from decision makers, the public, and the media. A major milestone was the opening of YMCA’s Sprott House in February 2016—Canada’s first LGBTQ2S transitional housing program, an important step in the right direction. But we still have a long way to go.

We need a committed, national strategy to end LGBTQ2S youth homelessness. This will allow us to respond to the unique needs of LGBTQ2S youth in rural and urban communities from province to province, and will place specialized housing with integrated supports at the forefront, as well as comprehensive mandatory LGBTQ2S cultural competency training for staff at drop-in and housing programs.

This strategy must include emphasis on longer-term solutions and prevention. It must do so through engaging shelters, youth-serving organizations, and most importantly youth themselves. Let’s ensure access to safe beds, as well as safe and affirming spaces and environments where youth can bring their full authentic selves. A national strategy to end LGBTQ2S youth homelessness is a promise that we will no longer tolerate homophobia, transphobia, or biphobia. It’s a message to the world that everyone deserves a safe place to sleep and no young person should end up on the streets because of whom they love or how they identify.

CBoC reports this wage gap will cost our economy approximately $7.5 billion over a 10 year span. It also forces some youth to remain dependent on welfare which will cost all levels of government about $126,000 per former foster youth.

This is Canada’s first comprehensive look at the lack of social and economic opportunities available to those leaving a children’s welfare system. Despite Canadians requesting a deeper analysis of the issue and better support of it for years.

In early March, York U professor Stephen Gaetz wrote a report titled “Coming of Age: Reimagining the Response to Youth Homelessness in Canada.” His research specializes around national homelessness solutions.

“Difficult transitions from care often result in a range of negative outcomes,” he wrote, “such as homelessness, unemployment, lack of educational engagement and achievement, involvement in corrections, lack of skills and potentially, a life of poverty.”

He explained these transitions occur because many youth “age out” of foster care without a safety net.

The Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies released a survey in 2010 stating that 44 percent of foster children leaving the system at age 18 graduated from high school. Compare that to the 81 percent of the “average Canadian”. Those numbers tend to swap in mental health scenarios with foster youth needing more support than their peers.

This is something many other Canadians noticed a while ago. And something many Canadians have been living. Finally, we have the data behind it.

Louis Thériault, CBoC’s executive director of economic initiatives, believes our nation needs a substantial strategy for youth in foster care organized by the federal government and supported with data collected at all government levels.

The conversation has begun. Let’s make sure we act on it.

Plus, it’s always fun to revisit our best reporting and writing, from the very talented contributors who helped make This Magazine what it is today, and what will continue to shape it in the future.

Our first Throwback Thursday is “The Streets of Iqaluit” by Gordon Laird from our 2002 March/April issue. This story examines the homelessness in Iqaluit—where Inuit line up at soup kitchens and fill homeless shelters—and what this says about modern Inuit life and the fight to maintain traditional ways  (plus Canada’s tendency to ignore the North’s myriad struggles). Too sadly, and despite Stephen Harper’s love affair with the North, for all that makes the territory amazing, Nunavut remains both underfunded, under-resourced, and replete with challenges, making Laird’s story especially poignant today.