Arriving at the problem
After one year of my PhD I have started to chronicle how I arrived at social policy issues as the topic of my research (specifically social assistance).
In 2016 after working in the homelessness sector for nearly a decade, I focused my graduate studies on the disjuncture between the philosophy of housing first and how it was practiced in the non-profit homelessness sector. Housing First is based on the philosophy that housing should not be contingent on readiness, or on ‘compliance’ with sobriety. I understood it as a rights-based model based on a belief that all people deserve housing however due to near constant demand for outcomes and funding, people in housing first programs were subject to regular monitoring, and frequent check ins with their case managers to report on their system use. Failure to check in with their case manager could result in a delay or termination of their rental benefits and regrettably I participated in this harmful practice. Meanwhile the structures leading to homelessness such as the declining stock of non-market housing, and rising cost of rent remained unchanged and was almost invisible to the homeless serving system of care in Calgary. I became frustrated with a system that ignored the systemic issues while supporting practices that organized and pathologized instead of helping.
My lived experience as a front line social worker taught me Canada’s charitable system has become a taken for granted response to poverty in which food banks are the solution to hunger, homeless shelters are the solution to homelessness, and community-based charities are the preferred option to help people meet their basic needs. Our dependency on charities to address poverty is encouraged through the tax system and further normalized through donation campaigns and cultural expectations of the private sector to adopt corporate social responsibility policies.
We are conditioned to adopt a charitable mindset that poverty can only be “solved” through the donation of our clothes, our food and our money however this perspective ignores the potential of political solutions. Once I was able to shed the charitable mindset I realized our need for charitable services was growing and instead of questioning this trend we use as justification to continue our dependency. This is not a desirable outcome, nor an indicator of success. If our demand for poverty related charities is growing, it is a signal the economy is failing people, and this is not a problem that can be solved with more funding for food hampers.