OH Canada!

TORONTO, July 8 (Reuters) - Adolescents and young families are
being hit hardest by the growing rate of homelessness in Canada,

according to ``The Progress of Nations'' annual report by the United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF), which was released on Wednesday.
Young people between the ages of 10 and 19 total 4.5 million and
comprise 13.5 percent of Canada's population.
The report estimated Canada has roughly 200,000 homeless people, with
between 5,000 and 12,000 in Toronto, the nation's largest city.
By comparison, the report estimated that there are some three million
homeless people in the 15 member countries of the European Union and
about 750,000 homeless in the United States.
There are no official statistics for the homeless in Canada.
``We have very little in terms of data in Canada about homelessness.
We need more data,'' Dawn Walker, executive director of the Canadian
Institute for Child Health told Reuters. ``Right now we're working on
anecdotal information.''
In Toronto, 6,500 people stayed in emergency shelters on a typical
night in late 1997 -- a jump of two thirds in a single year, the
UNICEF report.

``Canada's homeless used to be older men who often had alcohol and
drugs problems,'' said Walker. ``What's happening now is that that
trend is changing and we're getting more and more young people, more
people with young families.''
Welfare cuts by Canada's federal and provincial governments and the
end of rent control in major cities have made it increasingly tough
for the poor to get affordable housing and to qualify for programmes
that might keep them off the street.
``There was no way out,'' Diane Marlow, Minister for International
Cooperation and Minister Responsible for la Francophonie, said at a
UNICEF's press conference in Toronto. ``We had a huge deficit, and we
dealt with that. I think we have to keep working with what we have.''
Marleau also urged all levels of government to work toward eradicating
Canada's homeless problem.
Canada, the United States, Britain and Australia are identified in the
UNICEF report as countries engaged in what it called the
``demonization of caring government,'' because of declining public
investment in social housing and the waning involvement of local
authorities and nonprofit organizations in trying to solve the
homeless problem.
``We've always had people on the street but it used to be kids who did
it in the spring and summer months and it was an interim part of their
lives,'' observed Walker. ``What we're now seeing are young people who
are on the street for many many years. It's becoming much more their
way of life.''
According to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, every
child has the right to ``a standard of living adequate for the child's
physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development.''

By definition, homelessness denies all these rights.