Home Suite Hope, an Oakville-based charity serving the Halton Region, is dealing with a significant housing crisis due to skyrocketing rental costs and alleged discrimination from landlords against the "kind of people" in need of assistance.
The organization, led by Executive Director Sara Cumming, supports homeless single-parent families through a four-year program. This includes housing, life skills training, a two-year bursary to Sheridan College, books, professional development workshops, mentorship, and employment support.
"Pre-pandemic we were 100% successful meaning that 100% of our graduates left social assistance and subsidized housing for paid employment," said Cumming. "Post 2021 this looks very different with housing inflation."
As a charity with over 20 years of service, Home Suite Hope is shocked by the current obstacles, particularly the surge in average housing costs going from $1,600 to $2,500 per month, making affordable housing increasingly scarce.
Cumming also warns of a growing visibility of homelessness in Halton if the housing crisis is not addressed soon.
"Everyone in our price range has turned us down indicating that they do not want 'these kind of people in their units'," she said.
"We currently have four families sitting homeless because we cannot find landlords to rent to them—even with our reputation and funds backing them," said Cumming.
The charity has criteria for parents who enter their programs to meet, including no drug abuse, having no ongoing mental health issues, no criminal records or ongoing court cases, and having no more than three children.
Oakville News spoke with one of the four families, an immigrant single mother of two young children, who has asked not to be named.
While working as a live-in caregiver, this single mother discovered that her overseas qualifications were not recognized in Canada, preventing her from obtaining permanent residency.
After the family she worked for moved away, her case manager connected her with Home Suite Hope, enabling her to enter the temporary housing program, which will end for her on July 31, 2024.
Currently working part-time as a caregiver, this mother of two is working hard to avoid homelessness. She is searching for a miracle and is disheartened by the discrimination she says she has encountered from local landlords.
One of the properties the organization says they have viewed multiple times, but says they were rejected from, is located at 2035 Prospect Street in Burlington.
According to Cumming, this location was listed for $2,100 per month for a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment and rejected all applications from Home Suite Hope because they did not want tenants who needed guarantors.
Oakville News attempted to contact this property but has not received a response at the time of publication. The mother who spoke to Oakville News reporters did not indicate whether or not this was one of the properties she directly had a negative encounter with.
"I don't think it's more of a homeless situation. I think it's the fact that I'm a Black immigrant and a single mom. I think that's where the stigma is in my situation," she said.
"I find that landlords are less willing to rent out to Black single moms," she continued, explaining that she feels her race and status as an immigrant has been a "strike" against her.
"Some of them also require you to be making double or triple the monthly rent as your income, which is an unrealistic goal for me."
One of her children is as young as four years old. Despite the stressful search for stable housing, her search continues under a tight deadline.
Frustrated by the situation, Cumming explained to Oakville News, "All of our participants are Halton based. We do not move people into the region. We accept people off of Halton's by-name homelessness list."
"The thinking around we don't want poor people here is very problematic because they've always been here they have just been more hidden. If we do not collectively address this soon Halton's reputation will quickly be hit as droves of people move from hidden to very visible homeless..hello more encampments [sic]."