Fort McMurray as one of the boomtowns of oil businesses in Canada, attracts lots of migrants to earn money. Instead of getting what they were promised, wealth, many people in this town ended up suffering from extremely low living conditions. Homelessness becomes prevalent and the blooming industry is one of the main contributors.
Oil industries in Fort McMurray are affecting the city in every way. The documentary game, Fort McMoney, reveals the reality of this city. Many people hold high perceptions and no conception when they first came to this town to earn big money, at the end of the day they just ended up working in McDonald’s for 13 dollars an hour. Additionally, local workers are not competitive enough to immigrants, who had been attracted to this industrial boomtown, since the immigrants’ wages are much lower. The money they have earned just couldn’t satisfy their needs in a highly expanded town where a two-bedroom apartment cost sometimes 4,000 dollars per month. When they couldn’t afford a room, they become homeless. Some people did earn money, sometimes too much money, in this industry. Some of them then become wasted on drugs and alcohol. An abundant number of 3,000 employees of Suncor, one of the largest oil companies in Canada, was presented in court in 2012 over random drug tests. (Thurton, 2017) Locals say the addicted are part of the constitution of homelessness. There is a homeless help center that receives an average of 27 new homeless people per month. Some people born in this town or lived for years are becoming homeless. They pick bottles and cans for a living and when they got their money, liquor, and cigarettes come before a room to live. Abuse of drugs and alcohol, robbery, car theft, and prostitution are norms and lead to the prevalence of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) in the homeless community. (Fort McMoney, n.d.)
The reasons behind this are varied and mostly man-made, especially correlated with the nonfeasance of the government. People say the government stays too close with the large oil companies and started to question if the government could serve the shareholders and the citizens at the same time because normally their interests are opposed. In the documentary game, the conversation with the mayor clearly shows the government fully notice all kinds of problem that exist in Fort McMurray but refuse or neglect the obligation to repair them. The mayor constantly compares Fort McMurray with other cities and understates the problems by saying these are all normal. She makes no progress on solving these issues not only limited to homelessness but also problems like male domination. (Fort McMoney, n.d.)
Industry controls this city, influential people stick together. These people couldn’t empathize with the suffering homeless community to make effective moves to cure this issue. Even though some large companies are generous towards the homeless helping organization by building food storage for the homeless people and supporting local facilities, this will only keep the homeless. People could survive depending on the support, but they couldn’t do any better. Velvet handcuffs, the doctor said, it’s soft and comfortable but led them to nowhere but to stay in this strange smell and water-polluted city. (Fort McMoney, n.d.)
To solve this problem, we could not just simply supply the homeless people with room or food, since this will worsen the situation once they depend on aid to survive. (Miller, 2012) While stronger control over drug usage could be a start since many people in this city are broke because of it. However, the challenge is some of the entrepreneurs are involved in drug trafficking, according to the doctor in Fort McMoney, who happens to be wealthy and powerful which is hard to restrain. Hence, as long as the industry still dominates this city, there are not many individuals could do to eliminate homelessness in this town. (Fort McMoney, n.d.)
In conclusion, homelessness exists in Fort McMurray because of the oil industry and is aggravated because of the nonfeasance of the government, and there isn’t much effective solution to climate homelessness in this city.