Putting a face on poverty: many think it's a disgrace that there should be homeless and poverty-stricken people in a country as rich as Canada, but hundreds of thousands of us are struggling financially.

The obvious victims of poverty are the people living on the streets, and their numbers have been increasing steadily over the last 15 years. There's no accurate figure on the number of homeless people in Canada. The very nature of homelessness makes it difficult to count the people affected. With no fixed address, the homeless population is mobile and, in many cases, hidden, so no one knows how many of us live on the streets or in substandard shelter.

What we do know is that homelessness can affect people of any age, gender, or ethnic background. People become homeless for a variety of reasons: many have become disconnected from their families and communities, often as a result of mental illness; others cannot find or keep their jobs, and some work but at low-paying jobs that don't provide enough money to pay the rent. Some are seniors on fixed incomes who can't handle rent increases. Other causes include addiction, poor health, landlord-tenant conflict, condemnation/demolition of rental units, or release from jail.

When most of us think of homeless people, we imagine them sleeping on park benches or in building stairwells. But, most homeless people (80 percent) don't live on the street. They find shelter in cars, or sleep in temporary beds in church basements or abandoned buildings. Some move around among friends and family.

Raising the Roof is a national charity dedicated to long-term solutions to homelessness in Canada. According to the organization:

* Every community in Canada has homeless people, even if you don't see them on the street;

* As women generally earn less than men, they are more vulnerable to becoming homeless;

* Newcomers to the rental housing market, immigrants, and refugees, are often required to rent housing that they cannot afford. They are usually one paycheque away from eviction;

* Many seniors face eviction due to fixed incomes that can't absorb increased rents and taxes;

* The working poor, often single parents with young children, end up living in crowded housing as they are unable to afford a decent place to live while feeding and clothing their children;

* The hidden homeless are at risk of long-term physical and emotional harm. The longer anyone remains homeless, the greater the social and economic costs.

It isn't surprising that homeless people are at higher risk for illness and have higher death rates than the general population. Studies have documented that the burden of illness among homeless people has various causes including mental illness and addictions, medical conditions, tuberculosis, HIV infection, and traumatic injuries. Combined with poverty and often inadequate access to health care, it follows that they have much higher mortality rates. For example, a recent study of homeless women in Toronto showed they are dying at 10 times the rate of other women between 18 and 44. And, the link between early death and homelessness has been found in many other North American and European cities.

However, not all poor people are homeless. Many of them are employed full time but their wages are not high enough to cover standard living expenses.

In 2001, there were about 460,000 working poor in Canada, close to one million people when the group was extended to include their dependants. These are productive people who contribute to the prosperity of the country but struggle to meet their basic needs. One study found that the working poor work, on average, as much as their non-poor counterparts but for little more than half the wage: they were twice as likely to work in the sales and services industry or to work for small enterprises, and three times as likely to be self-employed.

Statistics Canada found in 2004 that there were 547,000 people in Canada working at minimum-wage jobs: they were mostly female, mostly young, and mostly part-timers. (Minimum wages range from a low of $5.90 an hour in Alberta to a high of $8.50 in Nunavut, with most provinces setting the rate at between $6 and $7.) Nearly half of all minimum-wage workers were between the ages of 15 and 19 and most--60 percent--have only part-time jobs. Women account for about two-thirds of minimum-wage workers, at almost double the rate for men. The study found that 27,000 single parents are earning a minimum wage, and that even the 28,000 living alone have a hard time supporting themselves at that income level.

A couple in Ontario, both of them working full time at minimum wage jobs, earn $27,000; that's $5,000 below the poverty line. A single person gainfully employed 40 hours a week at the minimum wage earns annual before-tax income of $14,248. That leaves them more than $4,000 below the poverty line for single people in Ontario cities, and even further below the market-basket measure of poverty. Statistically, people living in Atlantic Canada have a higher incidence of poverty.

But, wherever you look, women are more vulnerable to poverty than men are. According to the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW), women and youth account for 83 percent of Canada's minimum-wage workers. In 2002, CRIAW estimated that 56 percent of lone-parent families headed by women are poor, compared with 24 percent of those headed by men. Many are financially strained because they don't receive regular, agreed-upon support payments from the non-custodial parent (usually the father). The Institute also says almost half of single, widowed, and divorced women over 65 are poor, often because of job inequity, which leaves women earning 73 percent of what men make for full-year, full-time work.

Even women with university degrees, who are employed full-year, full-time earned 74 percent of men with university degrees. And, they're even more vulnerable if they also are disabled, Aboriginal, members of visible minorities, or immigrant women.

Newcomers to the country in general have a particularly hard time. Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson, among others, points out: "Canada has a serious and growing problem of poverty among immigrants."

That's a dramatic change from a decade ago and for many years earlier when immigrants had incomes on average that were higher than native-born Canadians.

In 2000, a report released by the Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD) found that recent immigrants had a poverty rate of 52.1%. It also found an astonishing 62.4% of non-permanent residents lived below the poverty line when you included refugee claimants, and foreign students as well as foreign workers.

The next highest poverty rate was among Aboriginal people at 55.6%. In fact, the poverty rate among Aboriginal people was more than double the non-Aboriginal rate in two-thirds of the dozens of cities examined in the study. It was more than triple the non-Aboriginal rate in Thunder Bay, Saskatoon, and London, and 4.2 times the rate of non-Aboriginal people in Regina.

The rate for visible minorities was 37.6%: in the B.C. cities of Burnaby, Richmond, and Vancouver, and Ontario's Markham, Toronto, Richmond Hill, and Mississauga, more than half of the poor population was a visible minority.

The poverty rate was found to be 36.1% for people with disabilities, compared to 23.1% for people without disabilities. In 40 of the 47 cities studied, the poverty rate among persons with disabilities was 1.5 times the rate for people without disabilities. While the type and severity of disability obviously affects employment opportunities, other problems such as lack of access to disability-related supports and to workplace accommodations often prevent handicapped people from reaching their full potential in work environments. And, while it's hard to measure, discrimination is also thought to play a role.

The CCSD also found that poverty rates are relatively high among children and youth and among elderly women. For households, the average poverty rates among lone-parent families (59.2%) and unattached individuals (45.2%) are also high. Generally, the average poverty rate among all city residents was 24.5%.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. In 1999, Ottawa announced the National Homelessness Initiative, a three-year project designed to help ensure community access to programs, services, and support for reducing homelessness in communities located in all provinces and territories. The program was renewed in 2003 for another three years and the government pumped another $405 million into it. Find out how the initiative has helped people in your community.

2. Volunteer and contribute to the work of a local charity or community group in your town or city working to assist the homeless and create housing.

3. Invite speakers on homelessness and housing to talk about the programs available to the poor in your community.

FOOD BANK USERS

Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank found that 19 percent of the people who seek its help have jobs: their work just doesn't pay enough to feed them and their families. And, among the working poor who use the food bank, the daily after-rent income per person per household is $4.11. In 2004, it reported that usage went up 40 percent in the previous decade.

The food bank opened in 1983 as a temporary measure and has become a permanent fixture in the city. Those who use the food bank include professionals, such as an impoverished father of five who worked as an agricultural scientist in his home country of Pakistan, a former Tibetan teacher, a student and single mother of two, an artist whose disability benefits do not stretch far enough to feed him every day. Most users would much prefer to be earning a living wage rather than relying on charity. But, it's estimated that about 160,000 need emergency food relief every month in the Greater Toronto Area.

A Housing and Homelessness Report Card in 2003 found that even with a strong economy, many people are struggling financially in Toronto. According to the report:

* 552,000 Toronto households have incomes below the poverty line:

* 250,000 households pay more than 30 percent of their incomes on rent;

* 71,000 households are on the municipal waiting list for affordable, social housing; and

* 31,985 homeless individuals (including 4,779 children) stayed in a Toronto shelter at least once during 2002.

The Report Card suggests key actions for all levels of government to take, including aggressive policies and programs to address poverty and increase the supply of supportive and affordable housing.

FACT FILE

In the summer of 2004, more than 80 homeless people camped outside Toronto's city hall every night.

While women are more likely than men to have housing affordability problems, and relatively higher proportions of women are being reflected in recent counts of the homeless, they remain less likely than men to be without shelter, or to use hostels for as long as men.

In the context of Canada's National Homelessness Initiative, homelessness is considered to be any person, family, or household that has no fixed address or security of housing tenure.

Aboriginal homelessness has many features in common with homelessness in the general population, but it also has several distinctive features, such as rural-urban migration, racism and discrimination, "Third World" on-reserve housing, all of which make Aboriginal people more vulnerable to poverty and homelessness.

Websites

The Homelessness Research Virtual Library--http:// www.hvl.ihpr.ubc.ca/

Raising the Roof--http:// www.raisingtheroo f.org/