Alberta Homeless Shelters to Charge for Beds

Monday, October 20, 2003

Fees for homeless proposal slammed

By MIKE D'AMOUR, CALGARY SUN

An outspoken advocate for Calgary's homeless is firing back
at a provincial government proposal to charge the homeless
for using shelters.

"I don't know why they'd suggest that," said Dermot Baldwin,
executive director of the Calgary Drop-In Centre.

"I think they have no idea what homelessness is about -- it's
poverty, dysfunction and bad luck," he said.

"These are people who do not need to be beaten up again, they
need help."

Baldwin was responding to a plan floated by Seniors Minister
Stan Woloshyn last week that would see welfare recipients, the
working poor and disabled people who collect provincial benefits
pay a fee to stay overnight in shelters.

Homeless people who don't work and aren't collecting any
provincial benefits wouldn't be asked to pay.

Liberal housing critic Laurie Blakeman accused the government
of ignoring the root causes of homelessness while blaming the
poorest people in society for a growing shortage of low-cost
housing.

She said Alberta's low minimum wage leaves the working poor
struggling to avoid homelessness.

And many of Calgary's homeless are already hard-pressed to
find a warm place to sleep, added Baldwin.

"We have 740 beds (at the CDI) and right now we're 100
(people) over capacity."

"We have people (squatting) in closed up buildings, sleeping in
the backs of cars and cardboard boxes or making fabricated
shelters from stuff they find in the lanes."

No figure for the shelter fee has been set, but it would likely
be linked to a person's monthly income.

Under the proposal, a portion of the fee would be set aside in a trust fund and upon
leaving a shelter, a person could take that money and use it as a damage deposit on
an apartment.

But Baldwin said that's not the business those who care for the homeless are in.