For several months, exacerbated by the pandemic, the news has abounded in the opinions of people and organizations, politicians included, concerned about the societal challenges presented by chronic homelessness, disaffiliation, poverty and the lack of decent housing. . A reality peculiar to an urban environment, but which now sadly extends its borders. These themes have also animated the debate of recent electoral campaigns.
A priori, it is encouraging to note that we are becoming collectively aware of people in difficulty and that a certain consensus seems to emerge as to the fact that they have often worsened their lot during this unprecedented health crisis. Moreover, it is disconcerting to note that the measures proposed to respond to them continue to invariably favor the implementation of ad hoc emergency responses.
How proud have we not yet understood that it is not by reproducing the same answers, which have turned out to be sub-optimal, that we will really help to change things?
There is an old saying, however, that it is better to buy a new boat than to run out of life bailing out an old boat that is taking on water.
Unfortunately, our response to the challenges of social disruption, homelessness, poverty, hunger, and so on, still boils down to considering that a few community groups, underfunded by the state, will single-handedly row and row. caring for people on the margins of society.
A reflex which moreover conditions community organizations to operate in a vacuum, to compete to obtain often insufficient funding and to set up services mainly responding to emergencies.
Networking
Why not instead join forces and work in a network and develop a continuum of services and solutions?
Indeed, it is illusory to think that food banks alone can solve the problem of poverty, any more than heat stops or temporary shelters can overcome chronic homelessness.
Are the lines getting longer? Whatever, we add an emergency fund. Thus, we have developed the annoying habit of feeding the problem rather than trying to solve it. Worse, we feel empowered and encouraged to do so in the face of growing demand for our services.
Quebec’s social safety net is woven from a fragile network of very independent, underfunded community organizations that have uncertain links with the health network, but also with municipalities.
It is time to come together around a new kind of thinking and approach. We must take the bull by the horns and tackle the root causes of precariousness in a systemic way.
Let’s ask ourselves the classic question: how would we design key services for disadvantaged people from a blank sheet of paper? We bet our answer would not come down to opening more food banks and temporary shelters. We would keep these, of course, because they play an important role, but we would also imagine adding contributions from other orders to ensure that the people who go through these services do so.
Initiatives with ephemeral impact
For more than 50 years, we believed that “charity” was the logical way to respond to the needy. We therefore encouraged charitable activities without placing them in a solution mode. By way of illustration, as the holidays approach, we fixate on clothing drives and food drives. Laudable initiatives, but unfortunately ephemeral impacts.
Rather than focusing on one of the essential emergency aid, but without a lasting effect on improving the lot of the people in question, why not design a coherent continuum of services that can work in tandem with the health network, for example? ?
In fact, we should be encouraged to roll up our sleeves together because the magnitude of the social challenges we face in Quebec remain possible to contain if we act. Our challenges are complex compared to other urban areas in North America, but we are in a better position to meet them.
So what do we need to take action?
Upstream political decisions and structural changes on the ground. To do this, obviously money remains important and more and more are needed, but everyone will agree that bailing a boat that takes on water faster is unlikely to get us to port. What is more, in a context where resources will always be limited, they must be used wisely.
Ultimately, promoting a culture based only on assistantship is like trying to keep a sinking ship afloat.