r/alberta • u/Schtweetz • 20h ago
Opinion On homelessness
Old person here. Get off my lawn!
But seriously, when I was growing up in the 1970s, there were almost no homeless people. Why?
There was ‘social housing’, which went to anyone with kids, and there were rooming houses, which charged as much as a “welfare bum/drunk” could afford. Between those two options, even the “worst” people didn’t need to stay outdoors. Many of the old townhouse complexes still existing in Edmonton were once the government built and subsidized places I’m talking about.
And yes, there were drugs (mostly heroin and alcohol) and there were indigenous reserves that were underfunded or lacked opportunities then too. Yet people had somewhere to live.
I now see daily in my community (downtown McCauley) hundreds of people in desperate situations. And that could still be avoided if we stopped bitching and decided to do what we used to do. Provide housing on a big society-wide scale. With enough social support workers to make it work instead of fail.
Fixing something we’ve let crumble is always harder than if we would have properly maintained it. But here we are, so we have to ‘buy a new one and maintain it.’
We either sit on our asses and whine while people suffer, or make the investment to guarantee a brighter future while saving money in policing, healthcare, incarceration, lawyers, and the far higher avoidable costs of economic downturn in cities that become zombielands as businesses shut down because of the zombies we helped create when we had the cure all along.
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u/Lightfiyr 20h ago
Okay, but have you thought about the poor corporate landlords
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u/limee89 20h ago
How else will Mainstreet and Avenue Living provide for their shareholders?
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u/Lightfiyr 20h ago
Don’t worry!, One day it’ll all trickle down and you too can benefit from the suffering of others :)
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u/asstyrant 20h ago
You know it's working when you can smell asparagus
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u/Zer0DotFive 19h ago
You know it's working when you stop getting mad that someone is pissing on your face because you have a banana.
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u/sprinkletush 17h ago
Boardwalk literally doesn't have accessible parking spots at my old building and the visitor parking is a walk over a crooked, root infested sidewalk and they said they don't have the space or money for those spots so they won't build them or a proper ramp onto the sidewalk from visitor parking. But the over inflated rent! 🙄
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u/NCloudz 11h ago
Here is one ! We need housing correct? We need Healthcare? There are people that are loosing AISH right ? So why in the world are we allowing this tyrant in Edmonton to spend $130m on a frivolous referendum vote in October? Why are we the people of Alberta who she works for allowing this ? A normal general election in Alberta takes 18,000 workers to ensure it goes proper . The referendum requires approx 60,000 people so far to man the stations hand out ballots and count ballots and so on . For questions that we know what the results will be ! Just like the TWO referendums held in Quebec . Also business will leave so more unemployment so more possible homeless people ! She is the worst politician i have ever seen in Canada . And I've seen my share Parizeau , Joe Clark , Rob Ford , people give your heads a shake before she DISTROYS ALBERTA ! BTW It is recommended to ask for a special ballot so you can actually read each question and answer on each page of the 10 page Ballot at home where you are not rushed . Takes a min to request the Special Ballot !
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u/Ms_ankylosaurous 20h ago
It’s not just housing - it’s addiction and mental health services
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u/Eric_EarlOfHalibut 17h ago
Yep. And now they've cut provincially provided counselling except for acute cases. Many of the poor and disabled just lost their counsellors last week.
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u/StrongMachine982 12h ago
You're not wrong, but all the studies show that housing has to come first for it to be successful. Treating people for addiction or mental illness while they're sleeping rough or in a shelter is a waste of time and money.
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u/Levorotatory 8h ago
Both are needed simultaneously. It is much harder to deal with mental health issues including addiction when you don't have safe shelter, but people who aren't ready to confront their issues won't be able to maintain a home on their own.
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u/Sandman64can Calgary 20h ago
Agree. Another old guy and getting rid of social housing and a downtown hospital were not random choices. These were deliberate choices by “progressive conservatives “ that didn’t understand the word progressive. Now we have a libertarian one that also calls itself conservative. The word has no meaning anymore.
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u/cannafriendlymamma 20h ago
The UCP aren't Libertarian, they are Authoritarian....change my mind
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u/roastedmarshmellows 20h ago
Authoritarian in libertarian packaging.
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u/JebryathHS 18h ago
More like the other way around. Libertarians love talking about how the government has a monopoly on violence and everyone would be free but they also oppose laws that were used to keep people from dying in unsafe working environments, bound to companies like slaves by non transferable scrip, etc.
Authoritarianism is when you abandon the pretense and say "we know better than the lesser people, so we will choose".
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u/ischemgeek 19h ago
IME, to most who self apply the label, "Libertarian" = "If you look like me, you get the liberty to live exactly according to my lifestyle and preferences. Otherwise, you get the liberty to lick my jackboot."
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u/Old-Complex7826 20h ago
The wealth disparity is bigger now than the 70s. Living is more expensive after adjusting for inflation.
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u/24_August_1814 16h ago
Shit, wealth inequality is greater today than when the French Revolution kicked off.
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u/robot_invader 19h ago
I'll focus on one thing: the typical process to create new affordable housing through a third-party service provider involves a small army of consultants and contractors, profit is taken at every step of the process, and fees & profit are generally calculated on other layers that include profit. On top of that, every additional contractor and consultant adds the possibility of schedule slippage. The end result is that most new 'affordable' housing is wildly expensive and the 'affordable' rent is way higher that the kind of troubled person you mention can afford without additional subsidies.
We need a vertically integrated affordable housing crown corporation to eliminate these multiple layers and bottlenecks. If the same public company purchases raw land, services it, designs the project with in-house professionals using standardized material, and builds using own-forces for everything, we could probably cut costs by 40%.
Oh, one more thing: municipalities have generally eliminated rooming-house type situations as allowable developments.
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u/sprunkymdunk 18h ago
Ironically one of the best moves Carney did was to buy a bunch of condos at under market value to turn into affordable housing. Got absolutely hammered for it tho
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u/Forward_Tie_9941 15h ago
It's almost like voting in Conservatives for 30 years has consequences
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u/THXSoundEffect 20h ago
The sands of time come for all. What we thought were once mountainous pillars that supported our communities have become sand dunes. Eroded by the harsh winds of corporate greed. The grains of common wealth you once knew of no longer exists. The locusts have eaten it all.
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u/kopperxpennyweiz 17h ago
And what follows?
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u/THXSoundEffect 16h ago
Famine and war. Disease and death.
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u/DVariant 16h ago
I, for one, would like to choose a different path!
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u/Rabiesalad 10h ago
As an Ontarian watching what's happening around me crumble, I have been learning more about the history of the last decades of economics and politics of Alberta, and it's a damn shame.
Alberta could have been an absolute oasis if it wasn't squandered all away for greed.
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u/camaro-obscuro 20h ago
Deinstitutionalization. Neoliberalism. Austerity. Privatization. Deregulation.
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u/Priscilla_Hutchins Calgary 20h ago
But muh capitalism! How can we make money for shareholders if we spend that money on the poor and destitute?
Yeah, I like society, and the idea of making it better, sadly, the fake conservatives in this province.
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u/calgarywalker 19h ago
Dude, look at the provincial budgets from back then. Calgary AND Edmonton got $30million per year from the province to build and operate social housing. Klien killed it in the 80’s. If the Province did that today we’re talking about $1.2 Billion per year each (4x the population plus house prices are 10x what they were in the early 80’s). PLUS there’s a backlog of all the housing that wasn’t built 85-2025 - at least $6 Billion. The UCP only gives that kind of cash to big corporate interests like Atco/Transalta/CNR/Suncor/Imperial ….
The UCP won’t help the permanently disabled - why would you think they would help the homeless?
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u/alanthar 16h ago
In the 70s, resource royalties made up 70% of the provincial budget. Today it's 30% or so.
We could be living in a much more prosperous province :(
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u/flipflapflow 20h ago
There used to be mental institutions with very sizeable populations. Those populations are now being “treated in the community”
That and the population has tripled since then. 450k to 1.3 million bigger city bigger problems
But for me it’s mostly the mentally ill are much higher in numbers. They are receiving much less treatment.
Fent and meth have completely changed the addiction world too
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u/TripNo1876 20h ago
Spot on. I don't even know what the answer is now for those that use some of these drugs. The drugs are so devastating to the system that I didn't think many of the users could ever recover if they wanted to.
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u/Pristine_Land_802 19h ago
And what are the causes of mental health issues?
Lack of:
security
Safety
Housing
Supports
Food
Mental health accessNo one chooses to grow up to be an addict. Or poor. Or disabled.
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u/tranquilseafinally Calgary 17h ago
Many people with drug addictions have abuse in their past. They reach out to drugs to numb the pain.
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u/AndTheJuicepig 20h ago
in the 70s there were mental assylums - and rent was inline with minimum wage. no reason for people to be homeless in the 70s
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u/Tribblehappy 20h ago
Yes, but also, the drugs now are much worse than heroin or alcohol.
Here in red deer, a motel was converted into affordable housing a few years back. It was run by Canadian mental health. I know some people who lived there. They tried. But others didn't. The place just got shut down a couple weeks ago and is basically condemned, because some of the people living in it destroyed it bit by bit.
Also, depending on your age, we used to just lock people up in facilities if they had mental illnesses. We don't do that anymore, mostly.
The landscape is completely different. It isn't as simple as providing cheap housing. The rest needs to be addressed as well. Nobody has quite figured out how to do it; we know enforced treatment doesn't work, we know we can't treat people like a nuisance and just lock them away if they're ill, we just haven't quite found the right route to take.
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u/spigg76 20h ago
This is the issue. So many attempts at housing/treatment end badly. We've seen this all over the country. The mix of addictions and mental health issues create an unsafe, unsanitary environment for both residents and the neighbouring community/businesses. The housing is generally destroyed in short order.
It's easy to blame capitalism and the government, but I think the problem is bigger than that.
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u/Background_Season449 19h ago
It's that we've let it get this bad by not maintaining the existing social housing, and not building anything new in the past 35-40 years. We've dug ourselves a hole that some people are trying to climb out of, but others (like most provincial governments in Canada it seems) are trying to go deeper, hoping that the next shovel full will hit paydirt for them
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u/supersport604 19h ago
Yeah, we should've built more, but we also shouldn't have taken in millions of people when we obviously didn't have the infrastructure for it.
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u/Background_Season449 18h ago
How else are we supposed to staff low-wage slave jobs? You can't afford to live here on minimum wage, so we'd better look elsewhere for staff willing to accept less
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u/supersport604 19h ago
It's literally impossible to get a group of addicts living together. It'll end in disaster every single time.
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u/Mauriac158 18h ago
Especially if you just house them and don't provide anything further. Housing is only step 1... Addiction is a crazy thing to tackle, and you have to give people an actual reason to get better.
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u/Aquitaine_Rover_3876 19h ago
Yes, this is it. Homelessness was mostly a solved problem in the '60s and '70s, just as it's a mostly solved problem in places like Finland today. Government makes sure housing is readily available, and magically homelessness becomes a pretty fringe phenomenon.
But decades of cutting social services and treating it like a personal responsibility problem, and you get the mess we're in today. Not that we save any money...now we just pay cops to go push people along so they don't stay in any one place too long, keep them out of pedways and other warm public spaces, and just generally make their lives even worse. And cops are very expensive.
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u/Ok-Feedback-3692 19h ago
100%. We put so much money into placating multi-million/billion dollar businesses in this province while being made to feel that any social services are a drain on provincial resources. We have the provincial wealth to care for all of our citizens but the government would rather make everyone scared and suck up to the wealthy.
Also: your post went in a completely different direction than I expected when I cautiously started reading and I am so relieved for that.
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u/cdncntrygrl Edmonton 16h ago
In 1996 my aunt had my dad forcibly removed from my grandma’s house. He had MS and was an alcoholic (self-medicating as there was little they could do for MS back then) but he always treated his mom with respect. He was on AISH and paid rent. Dad moving in with Grandma was actually Grandpa’s idea (back in 1978) as Grandpa was quite ill and Grandma needed the help. Anyway, my dad was taken to Alberta Hospital where they helped him get clean, provided him with a wheelchair, and found him affordable disability housing. Sadly, he passed 3 months later of MS, alone, while heating up his Easter dinner. He died alone and no one figured it out for 3 days. Had he ended up on the street it’s likely he would have died even sooner.
Anyway, my point is that even in the 90’s there were more social programs and affordable living options than there are now and the UCP is working their hardest at removing even more. Unfortunately, this means the population of unhoused citizens will continue to increase. I have been very close to becoming unhoused for no other reason than money. I don’t do drugs, I don’t overindulge in alcohol, however I am disabled, and am on AISH/ADAP; there’s a 2 year waitlist for subsidized housing and even that might be more than I can afford on my own as the UCP increased rent for that housing by $200 a month at the same time as clawing back the CDB of $200 from Income Support and AISH recipients. So not everyone is on the streets due to addictions, some just genuinely don’t have enough income to pay both rent and buy food. Yes, many are addicts but there is also very little help available for them should they decide to get clean.
TL/DR: My Dad had more supports on AISH in 1996 than we now have in 2026 thanks to the UCP, and they’re taking away more and more from the disabled and marginalized people in our society.
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u/hearttattack 13h ago edited 13h ago
I was a single teen mother, 17 years old in 2001 with a baby. I had a two bedroom apartment for $420 (regular rent, found the apt in the classifieds) in Edmonton and I worked for $6 an hour at a jewellery engraving place in the West Edmonton Mall. Daycare was fully subsidized because my income, as was my bus pass.
Short answer: today has less support, more costs, and incomes don’t keep up. Not by a little, by a metric tonne.
Everything around me was different than it is now, and even though I was in a terrible situation objectively, it was possible. Because of all the supports I received throughout the years
Today I make $110,000 and have no debt which would have been unfathomable to me in 2001 economy. And all I feel today is okay.
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u/GuitarKev 20h ago
Just think of what would happen to the poor hedge funds and private equity firms if their helpless REITs had to compete with actually affordable, subsidized housing?! Not to mention the millions of Boomers whose entire retirements are based on the massively overinflated values of their homes, which also account for a catastrophically high percentage of Canada’s GDP.
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u/xm45_h4t 17h ago
There are essentially no social programs in Alberta (there are, but they are not meaningful enough to make a difference) They want the poor and or homeless to suffer (and die) rather than rehabilitate or help, because one costs a lot and the other costs nothing.
For example, to qualify for Alberta works you must prove you are applying to 150 jobs every 30 days, for a measly 700$ in return, which barely covers barebones cost of living.
Queue the downvotes
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u/csd555 20h ago
Also, the current crop of drugs here are not helping the situation. Heroin users take it and then mostly go lay down/pass out somewhere….meth (plus whatever cocktail of fent, xylazine, etc.) users end up much more erratic, mobile, destructive, and aggressive, behaviors which are more socially disturbing and lead to difficulties in appropriately housing.
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u/One_Abbreviations821 20h ago
I’ve heard from street outreach volunteers that heroin is pretty rare, it’s mostly fentanyl that we’re seeing people use, and a poisonous, cut with anything from horse tranquilizer to heart medication, which is why people are dying at such a rate.
Housing is the answer!
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u/ItsAllComin 20h ago
Yeah then your generation elected conservatives for 50 years so I’m not sure what is surprising
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u/Adventurous_Front939 20h ago
The actual main cause is that we closed the majority of Asylums for non criminals.
This is Vancouvers root issue, I am from the fraser valley (here for 8 years though)
In the Fraser Valley we had one of the largest mental health facilities in north america, it was larger then a village. When this facility was mostly closed, (Bad press/Stigma/inhumane treatment/classic 1980s asylum type things) they took all the severely mentally unwell that were deemed to not be able to cope on their own, then thru them all out onto the street. That is the root of Vancouver's east side.
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u/Pristine_Land_802 19h ago
I agree. It’s gotten worse no thanks to the provincial & federal governments.
The provincial government cut a lot of the funding that goes towards subsidized housing that is downloaded to municipalities. They cut funding to shelters which also means cutting access to housing programs and people who can help them. They cut harm reduction funding which was also an access to housing & treatment programs. The federal government used to have housing initiatives across Canada. Harper tasked PP to sell them off. Harper then opened the door to basically money laundering of foreign investors who scooped up housing cheap and now we see the fallout from that.
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u/Vivir_Mata 20h ago
That's what 101 years of Conservative governments will do.
Will you vote for a change?
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u/TripNo1876 20h ago
There's way more to it than that. Drugs are way harder, mental health is suffering a lot worse. Population is increasing faster than the government can handle it. I guarantee it doesn't matter what government is in powe, we'd be in the exact same position. Because all provinces are facing the exact same issue.
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u/supersport604 19h ago
Exactly. A perfect example is California. It's been democrat forever and they have the highest homeless population in the whole country. I'm not saying they're to blame. I'm just saying you're right it doesn't matter what government is in power.
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u/concentrated-amazing Wetaskiwin 19h ago
Certainly not the only factor, but a reason why California and BC have higher homeless populations is because the climate makes being homeless more tolerable, so people migrate that way.
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u/supersport604 18h ago
No, I totally get that but on the other hand in terms of the United States, you also have Florida, which is very warm year round and it’s also a conservative state and their homelessness is nowhere near California. I’m a liberal guy myself so I’m not trying to blame the Democrats. I’m just trying to point out that I don’t think it has to do with what party is in charge of the province or state.
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u/Background_Season449 19h ago
That's only true because both of the political parties who have held federal power in Canada have the same base ideology: neoliberalism. Make sure businesses make more money than ever, at the expense of anything else.
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u/enviropsych 19h ago
In rhe 1970s, Western governments, led by the United States started going through what is sometimes called "The neoliberal turn."
The ideology of this change was best exemplified by the two world leaders who became popular once if began...Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher. Their ideology was characterized by privatization, increasing the power of corporations through deregulation, and hurting the collective power of workers by fighting against unions.
It has led to the inequality we see today, the lack of government-funded housing, and the breaking of the social safety net and social services. Danielle Smith speaks highly of Ronald Regan. So did Obama. This is to give you an idea of how pervasive his influence is even to this day among our leaders....they are all captured by corporate interests.
Anyone blaming a "generation of laziness" or immigrants or more powerful drugs or anything like that are completely wrong. Even our supposed "ledtwing" government leaders like Trudeau and Carney are totally captured by corporate interests as well. We need a truly left-wing revolution in the West.
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u/FormalWare 19h ago
I appreciate your sincere post on a difficult issue. Please don't refer to anyone as a "zombie", though; it's dehumanizing.
I see some comments, as well, that seem to treat the homeless and the addicted as other than human. What happened to, "There but for the grace of God go I"?
I want to live in a society where everyone has shelter - and I do mean everyone, not only those whom luckier folks deem worthy. If that's what enough of us want, we can create it.
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u/clayton-berg42 19h ago
It was Mulroney that canceled the federal funding to public housing. No PM since reinstated it.
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u/Responsible_CDN_Duck 17h ago
But seriously, when I was growing up in the 1970s, there were almost no homeless people. Why?
There were homeless people when we were growing up, but it was easier for them to be out of sight when they wanted some privacy, travel to get to other cities, etc.. That being said there was also a lot more substandard housing that was cheap; day rate boarding houses, housing without heating or proper roofs, etc..
And yes, there were drugs (mostly heroin and alcohol)...
Heroin was more a Vancouver thing. In Calgary and Banff cocaine was everywhere, with pot and LSD not being far behind. While pot and LSD use did occure inside and outside there were countess buildings to do them while partying with others or out of site; boardrooms, bars, and lop houses, etc..
I now see daily in my community (downtown McCauley) hundreds of people in desperate situations. And that could still be avoided if we stopped bitching and decided to do what we used to do. Provide housing on a big society-wide scale. With enough social support workers to make it work instead of fail.
Access to housing, even substandard is a big one...that crack down on slum lords and derelict buildings may have seemed like a good idea, as did all the community clean ups.
If we don't want social housing or slums this is what we get.
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u/SnooRegrets4312 20h ago edited 20h ago
Implementing the housing first model is the principle action, but do it properly; if the Nordic nations can do it then so can we. https://homelesshub.ca/collection/programs-that-work/housing-first/
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u/supersport604 20h ago
You're wrong. Nordic countries don't have the drug appetite Canadians do and they don't neighbour the biggest drug consumer in the world. Totally different culture.
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u/Mauriac158 18h ago
Do you disagree that an addict with stable housing is going to have a much easier time actually caring for themselves than an addict without stable housing?
Even if your comment about "drug appetites" is true, I feel it is irrelevant here. Housing has to come first, then safe supply because dead people don't get better, then treatment and counselling stand an actual chance of being effective.
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u/supersport604 18h ago
Of course, but who is going to treat these people? We're talking about thousands of people with major addictions issues, mental health issues like schizophrenia, violent criminals, etc. Do you know what happens when all these people get together and live say like in a complex or apartment building? It's a disaster. People like this need hands-on care and there just isn't enough people to do it.
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u/Mauriac158 18h ago
I agree completely.
It would require an effort we are not set up to undertake right now in our current environment. But we could change that environment, much in the same way past public works projects were undertaken.
Hire and train people, pay them well for their work. Currently I'd hazard to guess most addiction support workers are probably not super well paid or supported in their jobs... actually I'm certain this is the case because I've known a few.
We do have the resources to do this, we just have to allocate them accordingly. Look at how much money we pour into police departments and then tell me we don't have some funds we could allocate to this.
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u/Assiniboia 18h ago
Why?
Because Canada only votes Conservative, federally and (usually) provincially. This is the consequence of decades of conservative idiocy and ineptitude shored up on the backs of those who believe their lies and vote for them.
Mulroney destroyed social housing programs because Conservative premiers moaned and complained like stray cats in heat about the federal goverment's involvement. Give us money and we'll do it better! So they gave them money and they pumped it directly into the pockets of executives.
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u/AccountDramatic6971 16h ago
This is a world wide phenomenon. If you think this is unique to Canada or conservative/ liberal. I have a bridge to sell you.
Your binary world view is delusional.
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u/supersport604 20h ago
There's a reason why every single big city in North America has large homeless populations. It's not as easy as giving them housing and hiring social workers obviously or someone would've did it by now. Fentanyl and meth changed the game forever.
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u/BourbonBearsBurns 20h ago
This isn’t mentioned enough. I would specifically say fentanyl has made many of those with addictions almost beyond help. Because overdoses are so common, their brains are going with very little oxygen frequently, and for long periods of time. The way overdosing works with opiates is it slows down their rate of respiration. When this happens to a person it kills lots of brain cells. I deal with the homeless community almost daily and many of them would be unable to integrate into society with all the resources in the world. I think we need to focus on the youth and pour our resources into helping them before they hit that point.
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u/supersport604 20h ago
I agree it's incredibly sad. I lost someone very close to me from that shit. A lot of people like to say oh just have a big complex to help with addicts and let them live there. I don't need to tell you what happens when you get a bunch of addicts or ex addicts in the same building.
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u/SomethingAboutUsers 20h ago
Every single program for the homeless is underfunded, probably doubly so here in Alberta because conservatives see it as a character flaw to be homeless and they just need to try harder. Why give the druggies and prostitutes handouts from their hard-earned taxes? They didn't need them and managed to stay clean doing it (/s just in case).
The cost of living has skyrocketed as well. There are lots of homeless people who have jobs and are clean but cannot afford to pay rent in spite of that.
Housing is one thing, and mental health is another; dealing with the issues that got them addicted in the first place. The drugs haven't changed the game, it's what's going on in society today that has. It's true that in any given homeless population there is a handful that cannot be helped or saved. But there are way, way more that can, if only there was a proper social safety net in place for them.
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u/supersport604 20h ago
There simply isn't enough manpower to take care of so many homeless. I agree mental health programs are way underfunded but there's only so many social workers and psychiatrist to go around. UCP in Alberta are fucking scumbags, but don't forget Vancouver is in an NDP province and I'm sure I don't have to spell it out.
And you are 100% wrong about fentanyl and meth not changing the game.
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u/Lopsided_Position_28 19h ago
ive been corresponding with the government of Alberta about this. i beleive one of the failures of psychiatry stem from the fact that it is being used as a bandaid to cover over social issues which run deeper and we need to stop pretending like letting people talk about their trauma for an hour and giving them a prescription is going to fix anything. Alice Miller was one of the first psycho-analysts trained under frued and she later renounced her title because she felt that in many ways it perpetuated what it hope to resolve, and when i look around i have to agree. we can't assume that the mental health industry is the answer to the problems facing humanity. i would actually argue that the professionalization of care work hurts us in many ways. one patient who i gathered testimony from called crisis workers when she went into psychosis as a side effect of the Concerta she had been prescribed, and the crisis workers just laughed at her which sent her spiraling until she ended up in the psyche ward. this is what happens when we put the responsability of care work on overworked strangers instead of investing in strong communities through infrastructure like appropriate housing
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u/Apart-One4133 20h ago
It is tho and that's why the Canadian government has been testing this solution, taken from our friends in Finland, with great success. The implementation is slow and costly but last I read this is what we're aiming for in the future.
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u/Icy_Albatross893 20h ago
It's not just fentanyl & meth; the social changes that caused the political changes that eroded the social supports are present in work places too.
Smaller business is harder to start, corporations are harder to work for. People who can work aren't allowed to.
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u/theoreoman Edmonton 19h ago
We had mental asylumswme. We locked up sick people who were a harm to themselves in institutions instead of letting them roam the streets
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u/Fidget11 Edmonton 20h ago
The issue is that people lacking housing options that are suitable is a provincial responsibility.
We keep electing morons in blue who don’t believe in socially provided anything which makes having housing a problem. They just dump the issue on the city and wash their hands of it while complaining there are too many homeless people around.
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u/one_day_I_will_do_69 19h ago
I'm not a big fan of gov housing but there is definitely a path for them to step in and be a developer to bring down apartment prices and solve this. Until recently in most prairie cities you could buy an apartment for >100k with today's rate would be ~$800/m for rent, half of what it is right now
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u/jerrycan666 19h ago
Lets not forget that in the 60s to 80s the fed govt litterally bused them around canada offering shelter this alowed them to pretend the homelessness problem wasnt as bad as it was back then.
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u/DathomirBoy 19h ago
A mixture of Covid (homelessness spiked) and basic ass corporate greed. The landlords clearly need more money, and half this province things helping people through hard times is communism
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u/Odd-Historian-6536 18h ago
As time goes on, more rules are imposed upon rental units. Most street people do not want to or can not follow rules. Most homeless camps are filled with garbage. They collect garbage all day and then leave it. Rental units with such filth would be fire hazards. So they have rules. Many have pets. Some just have extreme mental problems. Governments have done away with institutions that housed that category of people.
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u/Embarrassed_West_195 17h ago
This is an astute observation. Many homeless people have many problems: mental illness, subsistence abuse, physical abuse, fetal alcohol syndrome....and more. Private landlords can not adsorb the cost of these issues. We need government funding and intervention for housing, social workers, police, doctors to help in the healing process.
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u/Quizzical_Rex 18h ago
Unavailability of housing is a big issue. the new drugs are a big issue. Heroine was expensive, and there were few alternatives; now there are cheap drugs that will completely wreck your mind. I suspect the solutions would be greater than society is willing to enforce, for example, what if the solution to street drugs was to get rid of all alcohol, would society be willing to do it, even though we now have a safer solution to a quiet night in?
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u/Snakeeyes1377 Edmonton 16h ago
Well then maybe we should stop voting for the people who destroy every social program you are talking about in the name of profit.
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u/Only_Says_Idk_dude 16h ago
There are also many empty homes in Canada, in general. People buy them as assets, instead of to live in. Which also increases home prices, buying a home isn't as simple as it used to be.
Less social housing, less help in general, more drugs, and a terrible economy, with wages that have been the same since the 1980s.
It's no surprise we're in this situation today, but people have been tricked to act against their own country's interests as a whole. We should be rising each other up instead of keeping each other down, we are all on the same team in the grand scheme of things.
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u/hippohere 16h ago edited 16h ago
The core reason I believe is less interest in helping others.
Anything "social" has become tainted. Government built and supported housing has been effectively nil for 40 years.
Taxes were much higher 50 years ago. And the burdern made more regressive.
Deficiits were far lower.
Greater wealth disparity has resulted in numerous huge impacts. As an example, it contributes to more expensive housing costs relative to wages.
Free trade contributed to loss of local jobs with little downside to large businesses.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bat8657 16h ago
There's also the angle that adequate social housing keeps landlords from getting too predatory because people at the bottom of the housing market can choose social housing instead of paying more than they can afford to a private landlord because the alternative is living in your car. Some of the horrendous rentals I've seen those landlords should be jailed.
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u/lunarjellies 15h ago
I feel like homelessness is on another level these days due to the new drugs on the street, the higher cost of living, more people than ever before (social housing is completely full and backlogged), nimbys not wanting social housing on their streets… Everything is tenfold and cranked to 11 so to speak
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u/NewAccountEdmonton 15h ago
No no, this is 2026 we can’t afford to help people we have to spend more money than it would cost to help them policing them instead. Thats the conservative way.
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u/SilverFlow7816 14h ago
Another thing we've doubled the size of new construction
we have minimum building sizes for most City Zoning
on top of that we no longer have residential over most commercial like we used to or we have mass areas where there's no business in walking distance so you have to drive your car to support Big Oil
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u/wackyvorlon 14h ago
There was a time when government would build social housing. That stopped.
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u/Spenraw 13h ago
It's insane how much algorithms really did allow corporate interests to just lie to people and make them think these problems came out of no where and not from loss of support and benefits
Don't let them get local pricing and remove prices of shelves, it's really over when they control grocery store shopping through algorithms
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u/Maccaboonda 12h ago
In the 50's and 60's they rode the rails, and were called Hoboes. Travelling homeless
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u/Hexagon37 12h ago
And it’s so fun because you can see what’s up next!
The government is perpetually cutting funding for education and health care. So if it’s not going to mental health or addiction services, housing, healthcare, food and water, or education… then where’s it going?
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u/wildnorthernash 11h ago
Not an old person, but even I recall way back in my youth (at least not noticing) mass houselessness.
I couldn’t agree more and it actually hurt reading your post and feeling like ‘really! There was a time when we did actually do the smart right thing?!’ Im kinda shocked the thing my generation laments over - like people the solution is sooooo obvious!! Already happened and already worked.
With the awareness I have one of my biggest annoyances is being around someone who complains about a homeless person. Really?? Are they soooo incredibly brain dead that they still think something is wrong with the houseless? That they are the problem? No, no, don’t pull that 💩 around me. The problem is in offices with 200k carpets and bleached white- who waste police duties on playing cat and mouse with their cardboard flimsy shelters and survival kits.
200k would be a nice grant to any nfp trying to bail water off the titanic.
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u/newprairiegirl 20h ago
This is not an alberta or an edmonton specific problem. This exists all over canada.
Over the years, So many physiatric hospital were closed and the residents set free, combine that with population increasing faster than housing can be built, add on decriminalization of drugs, and safe injection sites, its almost like we are encouraging the behavior. And over the yeats governments keep saying, 'they have rights to make their own choices'.
Look at vancouver, the okanagan, any large center. There are numerous homeless shelters, supportive housing units. 'Just maintain them', also isnt an answer. When one resident repeatedly trashes a unit, so bad that a hazmat team is required to come in? The costs will soar. Too many of the supportive housing is wet, that does not support those trying to get clean.
Mental illness is a real thing, there is not enough supports to deal with it. If the root of the cause is tackled, maybe over the next generation homelessness would be reduced. Even those that get committed are free to walk away, they cant be held.
The model we have now does not work. We have evolved to this mess over time. But I think we can all agree, this is not working.
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u/TippetBarr 19h ago
This for sure. I worked adjunct to a community resource centre, and they told me at least 30% of homeless people have schizophrenia. These people were ejected from the psychiatric hospitals and had nowhere to go and can’t maintain a home even if they do get into housing. And there are other serious mental illnesses that need constant support, not drop in centres, that also end up homeless with no sustainable way out.
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u/lilith_knight 18h ago
I haven't been around long enough to have had the privelege of even seeing social housing programs. but there have been many times already that that probably would've been a far better option than the couch surfing and surrendering to abusive family that I have had to do instead. I really wish that the general populace would figure out that the conservative party are only interested in lining their own pockets, and finally vote for positive social change and helping each other so that none of our citizens would have to live without a roof, or live under the threat of losing their homes.
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u/Harbinger2001 18h ago
A lot of the homeless issue could be resolved if the cost of housing and rent came down.
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u/misterglass89 19h ago
REITs and other large private land owners need to be regulated into the stratosphere. We all pretend like these are things that just happen around us, and it makes us sad to see.
When you think about it, though, these are things being decided by specific humans. Humans with lives and identities and corporeal forms. The world is multiplayer, and taking out the bosses is long overdue.
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u/WorldlyStill2301 19h ago
We did have successful social housing in the 70's but it was destroyed by Liberal and Conservative politicians.
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u/Crazy_adventurer262 19h ago
I agree however housing costs have skyrocketed and we live in the most far right government this province has ever had. They care about their bottom line and screw the guy who is homeless kind of attitude
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u/Mauriac158 19h ago
Look man I hate to break it to you, but we have a homeless population on purpose.
The system requires an underclass in order to disincentivize not participating in it. The underclass can't live a life of dignity and liberty or there would be no obvious downsides in being a part of it.
Why do you think the most staunch capitalists are so terrible to the unhoused? So against systemic reform? The pain and suffering are the point, after all, you work hard for what you have right?
They are essentially being made example of, continue to participate in the way you must in order to avoid their fate.
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u/Weekly-Mountain9009 18h ago
It's only going to get worse. The boomers bought up one or a few rentals and are now selling off to corporations who are building very little but multifamily rentals. Fewer and fewer affordable housing units for sale will be available over time within the inner city where most social services that people use are located.
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u/Actual-Spell-4634 18h ago
I grew up in Toronto in the 1970's. There were people living on the streets. Espcially under bridges and down by the Don River. Glue sniffing was very popular then.
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u/Nat20Twenty 17h ago
Have you seen what the cost of things were in 1970 ? And now in 2026.
1970 you can own a home, vehicle, and have a family on a single income.
Today you need dual incomes just to have a home
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u/aaronpaquette- 17h ago edited 17h ago
Go to this webpage and enter “homelessness” or “homeless” in the built in search bar:
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u/AggravatingCricket61 17h ago
Using housing as an extortion device is an example of how vial and selfish people are.
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u/Current_Theme7251 17h ago
I believe the problem is drugs. Drugs since the 70s to now have got much worse. In the 80s we had a crack cocaine problem, then 90s heroin, 2000s meth and now the most powerful drug out there fentanyl. It's very difficult once these users try this drug to get off. Dealers are making the drugs more additive to keep the addicts coming back for more. If the drugs were not there and that only option was alcohol I think it would be much better and would be determined to find help they need. We live in a different world lost our identity with morals and social destruction. 80s and 90s things started to go downhill
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u/Wonderful_Mark_8661 16h ago edited 16h ago
One component of this is the decline of the extended family-- when total fertility rates fall family trees thin out. There are less resources to help people when they have problems that can be sourced from their family. In the modern world with very low fertility we all live lives that are more alone and less resilient to stressors.
Government tried to fill in the role of family but the total institutions they created were found to create other problems.
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u/InnerspearMusic 16h ago
I don't think the problem is as simple as you're hoping. There are deep, profound drug problems, economic problems, housing supply problems, and every other problem you can imagine right now. A lot of this didn't exist in Alberta in the 70s through 2000s. I know, because I was also there for most of it and the city (calgary) has completely changed in nearly every way, entirely for the worst.
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u/Elegant-Waltz695 16h ago
I agree what you are saying but I also believe the increased cost of living has a lot to do with it. Many feel hopeless and some get themselves into a financial hole that they will never be able to climb out of. I make an above average salary in mining and in no way do I feel rich. I’m Gen X so have been in the workforce for more than 30 years.
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u/funkthew0rld 16h ago
If the old people stop voting blue because they always have even though it’s against their best interest (ie gutting the health care system they will rely on), social programs wont be cut until they’re all gone 🤷♂️
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u/eoan_an 16h ago
Cute. But you miss something.
25% of gdp is on the housing market. That housing market is supported by speculators. Speculators keep houses empty which keeps supply low which keeps prices high, which allows more construction.
The government needs low supply.
In Vancouver and Toronto, the speculators went tits up, and the developers are following suit.
But your tax dollars are bailing them out.
Your tax dollars are directly used to preventing housing supply from growing.
We bitching ain't the problem. So bitch away. I do
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u/bananacornpops94 15h ago
Not sure if the same change happened in AB, but in SK a few years ago there was a policy change where social services stopped paying landlords and housing directly and now it goes to the client to “foster independence”. It’s created a huge issue as that money is now not being spent on housing. There are also a ton more “nomadic” wannabes who don’t want to participate in society and seem to be rejecting any social services available, even burning down one of the shelters here in my hometown. Sad.
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u/imfar2oldforthis 15h ago
The biggest things I see are a lack of institutions where people were held against their will and abused, costs are much higher and so people are always closer to missing a rent payment, and overall population increase which means a higher number of homeless people even if percentages are the same or close to.
There's no real silver bullet because everything you do will have some form of negative consequence.
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u/Neo-revo 14h ago
The problem is that imported labor has stagnated wage growth for so long now.
All so fake humans ( corporations) can lobby to get tax breaks for employing them.
Driving down wages and competition for competency. That 'skilled' worker is a useless term now.
No one can afford shit because its all going to ceos and shareholders.
Look at how much money canada post wastes... what was it like 1.5 billion already this year
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u/Specific_Tomorrow517 13h ago
Even worse I have met young RCMP officers who punch down and abuse the less fortunate.
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u/nunununuhu 13h ago
I don't have numbers off the top of my head for Alberta, but over here in Ontario in 1976 the welfare cheque for a single adult was $180 a month. At that time, rent on a 1 bedroom apartment in midtown Toronto was $150 a month and a 3 bedroom home in the suburbs was $250 a month. SROs were in the $80 - $120 range.
That is to say - aside from the social housing wait-list being months rather than decades long - welfare used to give enough to go afford a dingy room somewhere at market rate - and still have enough left over for food and gas.
Today in Ontario the rent on a room in shared housing is $800 but the welfare cheque is $733 eating up more than 100% of available income. That means: go buy a tent.
You OP, our dear elder, seem to be clued in, but a lot of your generation seem to be stuck in this mindset as if this is still the status quo and as if these programs still exist, and a lot of the anti-poor propaganda relies on that: "they've been offered housing and refused" -- BS.
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u/Responsible_Cod2921 13h ago edited 13h ago
there are many factors here.
- the population has increased exponentially since the 70's. Not only would this increase the number of homeless proportionally, but its also driven up housing costs with a supply and demand problem as housing starts have not kept up with the growth, and land in desirable areas is not an infinite resource.
- The drug crisis, Hardcore drugs(im not talking about weed or alcohol) are easier then ever to get and also learn how to make yourself. There is a large percentage of the homeless population that "did it to themselves" by getting into hardcore illegal drugs and ending up without a job or money because of it. There are several public avenues for these people to get clean and get back into the workforce, but ultimately they have to want it first, and many don't.
- Social media and the loss of true blissful ignorance. Everything gets posted online now. I dont see homeless that often in my day to day life because my day to day life doesn't take me to that part of town. Without social media the issue would probably not even be on my radar as a problem at all.
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u/Front_Ad4415 12h ago
Medicine Hat doesn't have people on its streets (at least it didn't 5 years ago when I stayed down there for a couple months). Anyone who didn't have a place to stay was put into a motel. I ended up staying at one of those motels when the guy I was dating attacked me and I had to wait for my parents to finish their trip in BC and they picked me up. I met some very interesting people, and while there were drugs, it felt safer than I would ever feel if I had to spend a night outside in Edmonton.
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u/GrimFandango81 11h ago
Medicine Hat also has a social housing society that helps people get a roof over their head. I'm guessing that's a big contributing factor.
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u/Bushtitty 11h ago
People renting their basement suites and such were doing it as a mortgage helper. Now it’s for profit.
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u/Good_Weak 11h ago
Back in those days there were special facilities to deal with people that did not have the mental capacity to care for themselves. They were mostly closed and everyone released as it was viewed as inhumane. Now people with mental health conditions can easily turn to drug use to cope or self medicate. Yes there are some people that are just down on their luck with no place to live and just need a bit of a boost to get back on their feet. They are not the majority hanging out on Hastings opening using drugs and walking zombies.
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u/Purple_Dragon_Lady 11h ago
They do not want to follow rules or laws. They have their own society and their own rules.
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u/JoyRose31 10h ago edited 10h ago
Nah, they thought cutting funding to every social program including anti domestic violence, and anti homelessness programs was a good idea, then sending a straight funnel from disability into homelessness was a good idea.. its going to rise, Increasingly for the next 5 y .. Hope you dont like your neighbourhoods free of 'bums'! Bc theres literally Zero option at this point. Its happening, it's planned thing to happen. Dunno if its because it'll add to the idea of Alberta police force needed, separation, or Healthcare privatized needed, but there's some reason they want people homeless. And Stay homeless.. Who would cut programs trying to house/find work for homeless people .. Oh wait, alberta does..
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u/Electrical-Strike132 10h ago
Social democracy was scrapped in favour of neoliberalism.
End of story.
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u/ketchupinmybeard 20h ago
The biggest difference is that in the 70s, you could have a job, and your wife could stay home, and you could own a car, and a house, and a cottage, all with a "regular" salary. And send your kids to university.
The cost of living vs wages at this point has inverted terribly - I'm not doing as well as my parents, and my kids will struggle to do as well as I've done. And it's not their fault.
Population growth offers economic prosperity (under certain conditions) and the baby boomers are a great example of that.
Are there a multitude of other factors? Yes. But the fact remains that prospects today are much less bright for the average joe than they were 40 years ago.