“Jeneen and her two children live in a tent community in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. The cause of their homelessness is high cost of living in Northern Canada, not wanting to burden relatives, and needing to be close to community services.
“Often people ask “why don’t their relatives help?”, which I normally ask “how was your last Thanksgiving – drama free?”. The point is more often than not living with a family member is rather uncomfortable. Imagine an “extra” family living with you indefinitely and without their own income! Rather quickly it becomes a burden, and most people these days just don’t have the space and income to take care of another family.
“Jeneen seems to be making the best of it, for now! This is not camping – it is homeless! And winter is fast approaching.”
To be clear, I’m not the one doing the interviews. I’m just helping to promote the <strong><em><a href=”http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/”>Invisible People</a></em></strong> project.
The cost of living in Northern Canada is absurd compared to what you guys are used to. Our food costs easily double anything the US is used-to, our gas prices are generally 50¢ a gallon more than yours, and we have to heat our homes. (My heating costs go from $20.00 a month to $400.00 a month in the winter.) Everything costs more in Canada. It used to be better when our dollar was 75¢ USD but for the past few years we’ve had parity with your dollar so it really hits home how much more expensive things are up here. People up here have to work pretty hard doing something quite well-paying to survive. I don’t envy Jeneen, she’s quite a bit further north than me even.
Posted by Helmsman | January 5, 2012, 1:50 pm