The Loud Silence Of Queer Poverty

The loud silence of queer poverty In every sense that matters, poverty is an LGBTQ2S issue. So why aren’t mainstream Canadian LGBTQ2S organizations treating it as such? And who’s picking up their slack?

- Alex Verman

As I write this, the average market rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto is $1,200. Nearly half of the city, 47 per cent, spends over a third of their income on rent, meaning that – without dipping into savings, which many don’t have – they are one missed paycheque away from losing their homes or going without food.

Of Toronto’s homeless population, over 11 per cent are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and/or two-spirited (LGBTQ2S). Among youth, that number ranges from 24 to 40 per cent, depending on which researcher you ask. Just about every report on the subject finds that poverty disproportionately impacts queer and trans people, especially when they are Black, Indigenous, or people of colour. Being poor opens them up to greater violence and harassment by police. It reduces their employment opportunities and access to health care. It pushes them into shelters or other unsafe living situations, where they encounter discrimination and sexual violence from straight and cisgender staff and bunkmates. In every sense that matters, poverty is an LGBTQ2S issue.

So why aren’t mainstream Canadian LGBTQ2S organizations treating it as such?

Egale is Canada’s only nationwide LGBTQ2S charity. They helm an annual awareness and fundraising drive around the issue of LGBTQ2S homelessness that focuses nearly entirely on homophobia and transphobia as the causes of obscenely high homelessness rates among LGBTQ2S youth. Egale works on improving education and training among shelter staff and caseworkers, and it provides some support to individual service users who access the organization or its partners. It has also provided vital support to a small shelter specifically for LGBTQ2S youth in Toronto.