By: Izzy Cheung, Staff Writer
Content warning: brief mention of domestic violence.
Vancouver may not be the most expensive Canadian city to live in anymore, but that doesn’t mean the cost of living here is reasonable. On average, a single person’s monthly costs even out to around $1,400 without rent. Housing is an entirely different beast, with two-bedroom rentals in Vancouver going for around $2,850 a month. With this in mind, we must be more attentive and empathetic toward the needs of unhoused communities, rather than ignoring them.
The term “unhoused” tends to strike up a specific image — one that focuses on people’s outer appearances and ignores their humanity. Often, this generalization isn’t intentional, but something we have been conditioned to think due to recurring depictions in media and culture. This image fails to consider the different experiences encountered by those who have become unhoused. Being unhoused doesn’t equate to being out of work, and it certainly doesn’t make someone a non-contributor to society.
We are raised to believe the unhoused are responsible for their own circumstances, when there are so many other factors that contribute to becoming unhoused, such as: cost of living, health issues, and displacement due to domestic abuse. However, it’s not often considered that the unhoused have little-to-no control over the circumstances that place them in their position. Why is this the case?
Social power can come from finances (having a job, owning a house), social status (connections, popularity), or knowledge (education, literacy) — and often an individual’s ability to obtain these is dependent on their background. Those who come from privilege are granted better access to the resources that will help them gain power, such as being able to pay their way through university, allowing them to take the extra steps needed to earn money.
North America is a capitalist society that prioritizes the accumulation of wealth. At a young age, we’re often taught that we need to go to school, get a high-paying job, and work until we are “successful.” When people are financially successful, it’s viewed as well deserved. Under capitalism, individuals who aren’t actively going out and accumulating more capital are deemed as unproductive, and therefore deserving of being unhoused.
Because capitalism requires the extraction of labour, it preys on the unhoused by using them as an example of unproductivity. It shifts the responsibility of one’s well-being to the individual. This fuels societal beliefs that depict the unhoused in a negative way. In reality, systemic structures like housing prices, social stigmas, and more, bar more and more people from making enough money to sustain a living. Because they are pictured as not prioritizing job hunting — and are often much more scrutinized for using their hard-earned money — the unhoused are unfairly thought of as “not contributing” to society.
Moreover, the social construct of safety and class discriminates against unhoused communities. These social constructs are used to justify violence toward the houseless community because of the misconception that being unhoused is simply a result of bad choices that are easily overcome. Being unhoused is not a product of choice, it is a product of a system that doesn’t care for people properly — one that prioritizes the capital gain of upper class ranks, rather than helping out those in need. It’s a reverse-Robin Hood system that only we can fix by fighting against the stereotypes embedded in our society. We need to learn to separate media images of the unhoused from the actual people being incorrectly represented.
We’re all being taken advantage of by the same systems, but some experience these effects more than others due to the situations they have been placed in. We live in a flawed society that produces flawed beliefs about those who do not “align” with the beliefs of the system — and it’s about time we recognize that. People in positions of power make the decisions for those whose lives they’ve never lived a single day in. Unhoused people deserve to have policies and solutions in place that genuinely prioritize their long-term well-being, rather than having to fight for their basic human rights and dignity. This could include solutions like social housing or subsidized housing, rent control, and requiring employers to pay a living wage. As a marginalized group, policies should be put in place to protect them rather than making them more vulnerable.
