MONCTON – Bed bugs forced Wendi Lynn Capson and her boyfriend David Gogas to leave their rooms at a Moncton rooming house.
They both receive social assistance and are having trouble finding an apartment they can afford and are currently staying at the House of Nazareth shelter. They hope to have a new place to live this week.
They spend hours each day at the library looking.
“[It’s] very hard,” said Gogas, “because they’re asking first and last months’ rent and you only get so much to live on. People can’t do it nowadays.”
In New Brunswick, the monthly benefit for many people on social assistance is $537, yet it is hard to find a one bedroom apartment in Moncton for less than $600 a month. Even then, balancing housing and food is a problem. Capson said the situation is even worse for homeless women in the city.
She said she had been living at the rooming house for nearly a year and lost almost all her wardrobe because of the bedbugs.
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They both think having more affordable housing would go a long way to help with the problem.
A new report on the State of Homeless in Canada reached the same conclusion. It said to keep up with demand in the country, the government has to increase spending by an additional $46 per capita to about $106 per capita. That works out to nearly $3.8 billion.
Sue Calhoun, the community development officer at the Greater Moncton Homelessness Steering Committee, said she agreed with the findings of the report.
“Every time we turn around, whatever we try to do, it’s the one hting that we run up against,” she said. “The one block is that we do not have enough affordable housing.”
She said about 700 people use Moncton’s shelters every year, but said the number of homeless in the city is likely much higher. New research, she said, shows only two of every seven homeless people use shelters, so there could be as many as 2,500 people without homes every year.
She added that it’s easier than a lot of people think to fall into homelessness, citing studies that have shown many Canadians are just one missed paycheque away from serious financial trouble.
Deo Cuma, the executive director of House of Nazareth homeless shelter, said he thinks affordable housing will help, but that it can’t be done on its own.
“It will be a solution, but not the solution,” he said. “Housing only for a certain category of people won’t be the answer. For example those suffering from mental illnesses, or those who are heavily addicted to some substances.”
He explained that for many people in those situations, they would not be able to keep the house without a strong network of people who can give them other help, whether it is counselling services, or help with food.
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