Shelter opening to address London's rising youth homeless rate
Colin Butler | CBC News | Posted: June 22, 2018 8:42 PM | Last Updated: June 22, 2018
Social workers say the rising tide of homeless youth is linked to London's hot housing market
Courtney Bain spent six years living on the street.
"I was just a kid who didn't want to follow the rules," she said. "At about 18, my mom gave me an ultimatum: follow the rules or leave, so I left."
From the age of 18 to 24, Bain spent every day scrounging for money, food and shelter. Sleeping in hotel rooms when times were good and sleeping on the street when times were bad.
She was lucky though. She could go home anytime she wanted. The friends she made as a homeless youth weren't so lucky. Maybe that's why she can't quite explain the fact she didn't go back to mom, her way out of a life on the street was a lot different than what some of them saw as their only choice.
'Death no longer scared me'
It got to the point where she had so many friends die, she was numb to the fact her life might end before it really even began.
Death no longer scared me because I knew it was the only thing I was promised. - Courtney Bain
"Death no longer scared me because I knew it was the only thing I was promised," she said. "I was watching friends die around me at a rate of four a year and I thought, if I got stuck here I would be dead too."
It's a life no kid should have to lead, but sadly, there's really no way to tell how many homeless youth are out there. London social service agency Youth Opportunities Unlimited estimates there are at least 3,600 in any given year and their ranks are growing.
From 2011 to 2016, the agency says people under the age of 22 accessing shelters in the city rose by 31 per cent. What's driving that, according to YOU executive director Steve Cordes is indirectly tied to London's red hot housing market.
'This place is going to be only for youth'
What exacerbates the problem, according to Cordes, is youth will often choose to sleep on the street rather than spend a night in a traditional shelter.
"They look at it as a sentence," he said. "They look at somebody who's in their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond and they see their future selves and they can't bring themselves to that. It may not ever come to that, but that's what they see."
It's why his organization is building a youth-only shelter, where young people will feel more at ease. The location chosen is a trio of abandoned homes in the Oxford Street and Clarke Road area.
"This place is going to be only for youth," he said. "There's not going to be a limit on the number of days you stay here. You're going to stay here as long as you need to be, but we're hoping that's not too long."
How 'friends' keep homeless youth homeless
Part of that strategy involves continual check-ins with clients, to see if they have a family member they can turn to, or whether a social worker or agency can help them find housing in order to move forward.
"It's a safe place where you can explore all that and not worry about the other pressures," he said.
One of those pressures is friends, who will often pull a youth back down
"When you're in a more traditional social setting, your friends are people who are there to help you," he said. "When you're experiencing homelessness, your friends want things from you. So if you have an apartment, they're going to crash it. If you have money, they're going to want some of that."
It's why the shelter puts a premium on giving youth a space of their own, because as Cordes points out, when you're homeless, privacy is hard to come by.
Cordes said his agency is still trying to secure funding for the estimated $3 million it will cost to build the shelter, but if all goes according to plan, the hope is to have shovels in the ground by next year.