Web Links

Poverty and homelessness continue to be serious problems in Canada and in other industrialized countries. Visit the UNICEF website and other sites that deal with these problems. Prepare and present an oral report on one of the factors that contributes to poverty and homelessness in Canada.

While it might be tempting to assume that homelessness is tied to a specific catastrophic event such as war or famine, today it is a stark reality in some of the world's wealthiest countries.

Many people living in the industrialized world have no place to sleep tonight, had no place last night and will have no place tomorrow night. In their dozens or hundreds or thousands, they drift along the streets of large, prosperous cities, often with babies in their arms, seeking warmth, safety and stability that are increasingly hard for them to find ..

On any given night, three quarters of a million people in the United States are homeless; in Toronto, Canada's largest city, 6,500 people stayed in emergency shelters on a typical night in late 1997, a two-thirds increase in just one year.

from "Hardship in the Midst of Plenty," in UNICEF's The Progress of Nations, 1998, by Philip Alston, Chairperson of the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.

What factors contribute to poverty and homelessness in Canada and other industrialized countries of the world? What can be done to solve the problem? Work in small groups to investigate the causes of poverty and homelessness in Canada and to suggest some possible solutions to the problems.

Present your findings in a group oral report, a debate, a panel discussion, a role-play, a multimedia presentation, or a bulletin-board display with text and visuals (for example, photographs, charts, and graphs). Review in Canada: Our Century, Our Story the Historian at Work features Developing a Thesis (page 251) and Building an Effective Argument (page 275) to help you plan your research and prepare your presentation. Obtain from your teacher a copy of Blackline Master 14-5: Cause/Effect/Solution Chart to help you record and organize your findings and conclusions.

Review the sections on The New Economy (pages 366-370) to see how Canadian workers were affected; Changing Families (pages 370-372); and Demographic Trends (pages 372-373).

You could use some of the following questions to focus your research. Brainstorm other possible questions with your group.

• What causes poverty and homelessness in Canada and other industrialized countries?
• Has homelessness increased in Canada over the last few years? What statistics could you use to answer this question?
• Which sector of Canadian society is most affected by poverty and homelessness?
• What can be done to eradicate poverty and homelessness in Canada?
  

Visit the websites listed below and report your findings to your group members. Then decide as a group on four causes of poverty and homelessness, and brainstorm possible solutions for these four elements of the problem.

• Read the UNICEF report, "Hardship in the Midst of Plenty," from which the quotation that opens this activity was taken.
• Review current statistics on poverty rates in Canada from the Canadian Council on Social Development, including Urban Poverty in Canada: A Statistical Profile, which was published in April, 2000.
• View the Report Card on Child Poverty in Ontario which is issued by Campaign 2000.
• See what some Canadians are doing to help their fellow Canadians: Out of the Cold in Toronto and Niagara; and the Daily Bread Food Bank, Toronto.
• Read some of tragic stories of homeless young people around the world: the Street Children Memorial Page, which is sponsored by John Brown University, Arkansas, USA.

Create a chronological chart on the short-and long-term effects of the economic policies of Canadian prime ministers during the twentieth century. Use selected websites to help you understand and explain the financial and economic indicators involved.