We might toss a coin into someone’s cup downtown, but that doesn’t mean we have profoundly acknowledged the homeless. The Odawa Native Friendship Centre, which serves the Aboriginal homeless, is being forced to close its drop-in centre after having its funding cut by the City of Ottawa.
It is patently unacceptable that on unceded Algonquin territory, we do not recognize the need for Aboriginal leadership within programming for the homeless.
It is estimated First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people make up more than 20 per cent of the homeless population in Ottawa, despite accounting for only 1.1 per cent of the overall community.
In an attempt to save the centre which serves between 60-100 people each day, an Indiegogo crowdfunding page was started. The drop-in centre requires $400,000 annually to operate, but 43 days later, the webpage has collected $2,947 in donations.
Simultaneously, a couple from Ottawa has raised $49,200 for an Italian for-profit tourism business on the same website. Their reason for crowdfunding is because they would “love to launch [their] business with no debt.”
The point isn’t that this Ottawa couple shouldn’t try crowdfunding (they should), or that people aren’t entitled to spend their money as they wish (they are). It isn’t even about this particular business which is only one of many pages on Indiegogo’s website. The point is that despite the wealth which exists in this world, a service integral to the survival and dignity of other human beings receives so little support.
Our liberal blinders have caused us to all but ignore homelessness and the people it impacts within our communities. Do perceptions of wilful poverty render us incapable of recognizing need? Would our money be best donated, for instance, to the venturous couple who “deserve” it?
A University of Calgary study by Wilfreda E. Thurston et al. suggests Aboriginal-specific programming in shelters and drop-ins produced the best outcomes for the Aboriginal homeless. The Odawa Drop-In Centre is the only centre of this kind in the nation’s capital, yet a city spokesperson said it “no longer fits within the priorities’ of city hall,” according to the Ottawa Citizen.
Prioritizing funds for “housing first” programs is the reason provided for this decision. This is despite evidence-based research suggesting housing first policies falsely assume a permanent address is the greatest problem facing the homeless.
For the most marginalized of the homeless community, lacking shelter is only a symptom of something much more systemic. The Aboriginal homeless often fall into this category.
There is an Aboriginal man who often panhandles outside of the Starbucks on Bank and Third. His presence is controversial because of the way he unintentionally frightens children. Unlike the man who panhandles between the Metro and Bridgehead, this man can hardly sit up and his speech is loud and slurred. His favourite drink is a tall black coffee with two sugars, which he drinks with shaking hands.
I don’t know if he has used the Odawa Drop-In Centre, but I know 60-100 people like him do every single day. Our priorities are clearly wrong when we can find $49,200 to donate to a foreign business, but only a small fraction of that for those suffering on the street.
For this man who sits outside Starbucks and yelled, “Thank you!” to me four times after I asked him his name, every penny really does count. It’s for people like him why we must turn our assessments of deservedness into compassion. We must realize our successes and failures within liberal society do not change our shared humanity. At the end of the day, you and I are not a lot different than this man. We all want community, and every once in a while, a coffee made just right.
