‘Nobody is homeless by choice': Niagara couple collecting donations for people experiencing homelessness

ZenXGenius

Tayna Elliott and Chris Marlatt just want to help people.

The couple call themselves ZenXGenius, with Elliot being the "zen" and Marlatt being the "genius." Their goal is to help those that are unhoused in St. Catharines.

“During COVID, we thought about how everyone was struggling, and then we started thinking about the unhoused and how much they must have been struggling,” Elliott said.

Being Gen X-ers. Elliott said she remembers back in the '80s when she was living in Toronto and could just go out and volunteer for a soup kitchen or hand out blankets.

Together, she and Marlatt decided to bring that back, and go out multiple times a week to spots in St. Catharines where they know people struggling with homelessness gather.

They hand out food, blankets, socks, and more.

“Socks can change a person's life,” Marlatt said. “One of our unhoused friends right now, he has trench foot, and he's going to see a third doctor now to find out if his toes should come off. He's 24.”

But it can be hard, as unhoused people are often forced to move around a lot.

In 2021, the city of St. Catharines spent $283,000 dismantling homeless encampments.

But that may soon change, as an Ontario Superior court judge ruled that the region of Waterloo does not have the right to evict people from a homeless encampment because there was not enough space for them in the shelters.

A report received by Niagara Regional Council dated Feb. 14 from the region’s Commissioner of Community Services Adrienne Jugley said the region is reviewing the ruling and the implications for a Niagara encampment strategy “that remains under development but has also, in its draft form, helped to support Niagara’s approach over the last two years.”

The report goes on to claim that the region does not clear homeless encampments until they are abandoned or accommodations are found for all clients willing to access the shelter system.

The same report, however, admitted that Niagara does not have adequate funding for a shelter system that is large enough to house every person experiencing all forms of homelessness, and that shelters that are available are not necessarily accessible to all who may need it.

“If the available spaces are impractical for homeless individuals, either because the shelters do not accommodate couples, are unable to provide required services, impose rules that cannot be followed due to addictions, or cannot accommodate mental or physical disability, they are not considered to be low barrier and accessible to the individuals they are meant to serve,” the report said.

Reverend Karen Orlandi of Silver Spire United Church said shelters that do exist are often operating well over capacity as it is.

In the winter months, the downtown St. Catharines church hosts overnight shelters for those in need, working alongside Westminster United Church. 

“Nobody is homeless by choice,” she said. “When we just shuffle people around, all we're doing is moving the problem.”

The heart of the issue, said Brock University assistant professor Joanne Heritz, is a lack of affordable housing.

“The issue with the housing that is going to be built is that a lot of the housing will not be affordable for most people who are experiencing homelessness,” she said. “Even people in the lower quintiles of income won't be able to afford these new  builds. So that that's where the housing crisis lies, is that there isn't safe and affordable housing for people who are in low socioeconomic level strata.”

Research she did in collaboration with YWCA Niagara Region showed that people who are working full-time and making minimum wage cannot afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Niagara.

Heritz research also said recent increases in social assistance come “nowhere near” addressing housing and food costs.

With the recent increase, the amount of money that someone on Ontario Works can get in one month is $733.

According to online rental listing site Zumper.com, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in St. Catharines is $1,550.

“People just need to be reminded that the unhoused people are just that: they're people,” said Marlatt. “Sometimes they're desperate. Sometimes they're just having a bad couple of months. And I don't think any of that really matters. They're people who need someone to talk to, and they're people who need another person. Why not do that for someone else?”

“Someone has to do it,” added Elliott. “It might as well be us.”