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A collaborative research
initiative of the
Children’s Aid Society
of Toronto
and the
Centre for Urban and Community Studies
Housing problems and homelessness
contribute to social workers’ decisions to admit children
to care and to return children home, according to a joint
study by the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto and
the University of Toronto’s Centre for Urban and Community
Studies.
One
in Five . . . Housing as a Factor in the Admission
of Children to Care: New Survey of Children’s
Aid Society of Toronto Updates 1992 Study
click
here for a copy of the report
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Housing crisis in Toronto
affects child welfare system:
Living conditions have direct impact upon children's health,
safety and development
UofT / Children’s Aid
Society joint press release, Nov. 26, 2001
The shortage of safe, affordable
housing in Toronto is playing a bigger role than ever in
child welfare cases, according to new research.
Social workers' decisions to place and
keep children in the care of the Children's Aid Society
(CAS) of Toronto were influenced by housing problems in
20 per cent of cases in 2000, says the joint study by CAS
and U of T's Centre for Urban and Community Studies. The
current study replicates a 1992 study that found housing
problems were a factor, though not the only one, in about
18 per cent of CAS cases.
The housing problems experienced by the
children's families ranged from difficulties paying rent
and hazardous living conditions to a lack of permanent housing
and homelessness. Homelessness, according to the study,
includes those families who are visible on the streets and
staying in hostels as well as the hidden homeless who live
in illegal or temporary accommodation and families at imminent
risk of becoming homeless.
"It is not surprising that single
parents, low-income families and children are hit hard by
the deteriorating housing situation in Toronto," says
Professor David Hulchanski, a co-author of the study and
director of the Centre for Community and Urban Studies.
"Over the past 10 years vacancy rates have dried up,
social assistance was cut, almost 20,000 social housing
units were cancelled, no new social housing was built, rent
controls were removed, evictions are up and we have lost
affordable housing to luxury condos. We need government
strategies and resources to solve this man-made problem."
Social workers reported that in more than
11 per cent of their cases in 2000, the children had their
return home delayed by housing problems. This figure, which
represents 250 of 2,250 children in the Children's Aid Society's
care, is double the number of children who experienced this
type of delay in 1992. Over the same time period, the length
of delay in children returning to their families due to
inadequate housing tripled. In addition to the human toll
caused by these delays, the potential financial implications
are huge, says Hulchanski. More than half of the social
workers in the study who reported a delay estimated that
it was six months or more, representing a cost of more than
$2.9 million to keep the children in care.
"Housing is a children's issue,"
says Bruce Rivers, executive director of the Children's
Aid Society of Toronto. "The conditions in which children
live have clear consequences for their health, safety and
development. For the second time in a decade we have evidence
that Toronto's housing problems are creating havoc for families."
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