HOUSING CRISIS: EDMONTON

What the heck is with Edmonton and the rising housing prices! It's ridiculous! Last fall I played a game in the Edmonton Journal called "Rome for the Gnome." Gnomes were hidden all over different parks in Edmonton, clues were given in the newspaper and people had to solve the clue, and then go to that park to find the little gnome often hidden under trees. It became a little disturbing when we went to lift up the bottoms of trees to find gnomes and instead would find an entire family sleeping underneath! Mom, Dad, and kids. Unless you were to physically lift up the tree branches, you wouldn't be able to tell that people were sleeping underneath them. Whats really surprising and why you don't see these people during the day is because a lot of homeless people in Edmonton work during the day and sleep in public parks during the night. "Susan McGee, spokeswoman from the Edmonton Joint Planning Committee on Housing, said working people have been living in campgrounds over the summer or sleeping in the city's river valley."(http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2006/10/31/homeless-edmonton.htmledmonton.html) I think that if a person is working full time on minimum wage, they should be able to afford some type of housing or accomodation. It's ridiculous to me that Edmonton is too expensive for people who are working hard to support their families to provide food, clothing, and I don't think that shelter should ever be considered a luxury, especially in Alberta where not having a shelter could mean freezing to death! "Alberta's white-hot economy is creating a new class of homeless — the working poor. The latest survey of homelessness in Edmonton has found that low vacancy rates and lack of affordable housing are hurting those with jobs as well as the unemployed." (http://www.themoneyblogs.com/edmontonrealestate/my.blog/homeless-in-edmonton.html And as for shelters, there isn't enough room. There isn't enough room for people in the richest province in Canada! "168" people in Edmonton each night will not make it into a shelter because either the shelter is too full, (people being turned away) or people will be discharged from a shelter. (http://www.edmonton.ca/CommPeople/HomelessOct02.pdf) People have different solutions to these problems. Some people want to implement a "living wage" for people of an area to earn enough to be able to afford the necessities of life for whatever cost things are priced at in that area. Other people want the government to introduce a type of rent control across Edmonton. There are other solutions such as the prevention of foreign land buyers in the Edmonton area.

It happens to really irks me when I see people who work all day on minimum wage, often long hours, who have families, who don't do drugs or alcohol, are forced to work more than one job, who are responsible, who, because of Edmonton's rising housing prices cannot afford some type of decent accomodation. So, this is just something to think about, especially for anybody who believes that in all conditions being homeless is a choice.

p.s. This is a re-written section of my paper - "The Increase of Poverty in Edmonton", (written with a little more emotion for this blog! lol)