What London Can Be

Over the past several months while we have all been confined to home, many of us have listened to the news on several platforms giving us the news of the day internationally, nationally, and local news.  As a member of the London Affordable Housing Foundation, one storyline that I have been following with great interest is the impact the pandemic has had on housing.  We know some people who have been able to save and have money to enter a housing market whose prices are rising weekly. However, a story not as readily covered is the impact the pandemic has had on those who have lost jobs, who work for very low wages yet in markets that are identified as essential, and who have lost housing, whose rents are already high, or who are homeless.  Solutions seem elusive or seem to take an endless about of time.

However, I am buoyed by the commitment of the not-for-profit housing providers in the city.  Six of these groups have come together to lay out a plan for mixed housing on part of the lands of the former Victoria Hospital.  The plan is called Vision SoHo Alliance.  As it takes shape, the plan will include over 350 affordable units (i.e. below-market rents for that area).  We were called together by the London Community Foundation to consider how we could collaborate to address the critical housing need in London. Click here to listen to a podcast discussion by Sylvia Harris and Greg Playford describes our plan and our hope to make a difference:

https://www.lcf.on.ca/whatlondoncanbe/2021/3/22/episode-3-sylvia-harris-amp-greg-playford

The podcast is longer than a few minutes, but it is worth the listen.  Join us in supporting this unique and collaborative effort, unique in Canada.

Joan Atkinson, London Affordable Housing Foundation - Part of Vision SoHo.

Click here to read more about the Vision SoHo Alliance.

Concept art for the proposed development on the vacant Old Victoria Hospital lands.

Building the World After Covid-19 With Women And Girls

It has been more than 200 days since the outbreak of COVID-19 in December and every community around the world has been impacted. Our lives have changed.  And we are learning new ways of supporting one another as economies slowly reopen.

In Africa, the number of cases has now surpassed 500,000. Since March, the virus has claimed 11 959 lives, overtaking the 11 308 lives lost in the world’s worst Ebola outbreak in West Africa between 2014 and 2016. And if these numbers are low compared to other countries, the impact of the lockdown and curfews on the livelihoods of local communities including vulnerable women in rural and remote areas has been devastating.

There is a mounting food security crisis due to lockdowns and curfews, which have restricted mobility and disrupted markets to grow, buy, and sell food. One partner in Senegal noted “If COVID does not kill us, hunger will,” says Ousmane Sarr, Communications Officer at RESOPP. In fact, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that the world could see famines of “biblical proportions” if no action is taken. More than 60% of employed women in sub-Saharan Africa work in agriculture yet will most likely suffer from hunger if they are not protected from this potential threat.

Crossroads is mounting a COVID response with local partners to respond to urgent food security needs in vulnerable communities providing emergency food and sanitary supplies (soap, rice, grains, pulses, etc.) with education critical for prevention; as well as new support to women and girls at risk of gender-based violence.  Women and girls make up the largest group of people exposed to contagion because of their role as caregivers. They are at the frontlines of the pandemic, bearing most of the responsibility for caring for the sick and elderly in their homes and communities. There is a real and present risk of high fatality rates from the disease in developing countries where health and sanitation systems are weak if contagion cannot be prevented. Now is the time to act.

Many of Crossroads partners are reporting increased incidence of violence and abuse of girls, with some countries reporting a surge in teen pregnancies. According to the UN, there has been a ‘horrifying global surge’ in domestic violence towards women and girls, linked to COVID-19 lockdowns. Women are experiencing a heightened risk of gender-based violence from abusive partners and increased isolation, separating them from the people and resources that can best help them.

School closures due to the lockdowns have also increased the risks for girls to be sexually exploited or forced out of school forever because of unintended teen pregnancies and early marriages. There is a need to act now to ensure specific protections for the rights of girls and young women. Cuts to education budgets and rising poverty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic could force at least 9.7 million children out of school forever by the end of this year, with millions more falling behind in learning. And girls are more likely to be more affected than boys, with many being forced out of school, into the labour market -- as is already reported in Burkina Faso where we work -- or into early marriage.

Crossroads International with the support of its funding partners is mobilizing resources to help partners re-tool in the face of new challenges.  Direct support for things like access to telecommunications can support the provision of essential services to local communities and help kickstart local economies. As information services move to digital platforms to accommodate physical distancing, our partners in remote areas need help to adapt and provide emergency outreach and counselling over the phone or online. As resilient leaders, farmers, caretakers, and business owners, women can help solve these problems: we need to invest in supporting them. Only by working together, by putting resources in women’s hands can we come out of this pandemic stronger than before.

-Wanjiro Ndungu, Manager Philanthropy, Crossroads International

Affordable Housing - A Crisis in London and beyond

The lack of truly affordable housing has created a crisis in London, Ontario and beyond.  Low vacancy rates along with low OW and ODSP benefits mean that people accessing these benefits cannot even afford single rooms at boarding houses.  As of April 2019, there were 4,897 on the wait-list for geared-to-income housing in London.  Hope is lost, and peoples’ efforts are quashed when there is no safe, affordable housing from which to build a future.

The Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada support the call from Margaret Wills at Crouch Neighbourhood Resource Centre in London for immediate interim solutions to fill the gap until City of London staff finish the process of updating the Housing Strategy.  These interim solutions include but are not limited to: making money available for motel stays, allowing people accessing OW and ODSP benefits to share rental space without being penalized, and short-term rental top-ups.

Why Are Workers Strugging in Good times and Bad?

Sister Sue Wilson, LPRC (London Poverty Research Centre) Co-chair, explores the larger structural drivers of precarious employment linking them to the situation in London, Ontario. This paper highlights the historical changes and macro trends in economic theory and corporate practices which have underpinned the weakening of labour protections and job security over the last 40 years. Central to this discussion is the recognition that although the economy has been growing, the benefits of this growth has not translated into decent work and security for many, but rather increases in CEO compensation and concentrated wealth.   

Download the full paper here   Why Are Workers Struggling in Good Times and Bad?

Do Women Count?

Most of the pictures we see, or we have in our mind’s eye, concerning homeless people are images of men.  A search of much of the literature reporting on homelessness show pictures of homeless men.  Does this mean that more men than women experience homelessness?  Or are we missing something because of the way we tend to count homelessness?

Abe Oudshoorn, an Assistant Professor at the school of Nursing at Western University notes in a Blog for the Homeless Hub, that women may experience homelessness in different ways.  For instance, women are less likely to be visibly present at services for people experiencing homelessness.  Some of reasons for this might be because women are more likely to have children in their care and are worried to have them apprehended, or because they want to avoid men who have harmed them, or have other safety concerns.  So just counting numbers who use these services does not give us a real picture of homelessness in our city.

Other research looked at this question by tracking those who enter the emergency department in Pennsylvania.  They screened 4,395 patients on housing and gender.  These were people needing some kind of medical attention.  They hoped to get a more realistic picture of the population who were homeless.  Their findings indicated (limited as the study was), of those who were homeless, 7.4% were male, 6.8% were female, with 0.07% identifying as transgender.  

This is only a small sample, but it raises some important questions for us.  Where do the studies on homelessness include the experience of women, and could other data, seek better solutions to assist women who are living such a precarious life.  They too need support.  

Joan Atkinson, CSJ,   Office for Systemic Justice, Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada