My review of Eric Weissman’s book on intentional homeless communities

My review of Eric Weissman’s book on intentional homeless communities

by | Jul 20, 2019 | Calgary, Cities, Ending Homelessness, Government, Government Funding, Harm Reduction, Homeless, Housing, Pitching new programs to government, Policy, Social Housing, Social Policy

My review of Eric Weissman’s book on intentional homeless communities

BOOK REVIEW

Weissman, E. (2017). Tranquility on the razor’s edge: Changing narratives of inevitability. Oakville, ON: Rock’s Mills Press.

 

Eric Weissman is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick, Saint John. But he was once homeless, and has since written a very good book about intentional communities in Canada and the United States. This book is based on Eric’s PhD thesis, which in 2014 won a major national award.

Here are 10 things to know: 

  1. This book focuses on intentional homeless communities (IHC) in Canada and the United States. Intentional communities in general are communities built around specific goals. But in the case of this book, I mean small communities of housing sometimes made from discarded, donated and recycled material, and sometimes purpose-built, to address homelessness. IHCs have relatively sophisticated governance structures and are typically located on land owned by non-profits, churches or municipal government. The book argues that such communities are on the rise and that they constitute both official and unofficial responses to homelessness depending on which examples we look at. There are dozens of such communities in the United States. According to the book’s author, Homes for Heroes (Calgary) and Steve Cardiff Tiny House Community (Whitehorse) are Canadian examples of IHCs.
  2. Intentional communities are not the same thing as tent cities or tiny home communities. IHCs are legal in several American cities, where some receive government funding (though most such funding comes from non-profits and private donors). Sometimes referred to as ‘villages,’ they often have their own websites and wi-fi networks. Some have formal triage systems for determining new admissions. Many hold elections and have formal governance arrangements. Some pay liability insurance, some are legally incorporated, and some are inspected regularly by municipal officials. Tent cities, by contrast, are usually temporary, largely-unorganized and rarely sanctioned by cities. Conventional tiny-home communities reflect current tastes for micro-housing and may not be organized around any social cause in particular.
  3. The book demonstrates that who makes day-to-day housing-related decisions for marginalized persons matters. In other words, the book argues that simply having affordable housing in place with social work support (i.e., supportive housing) doesn’t cut it if we truly want to empower tenants. Rather, democratic engagement with tenants is also important. (I think Canadian housing researchers and advocates had a greater appreciation of this concept in the 1970s than they do today. For more on important innovations in the 1970s, check out Greg Suttor’s recent book on the history of social housing in Canada.)
  4. One of the book’s many strengths is that it makes readers think unconventionally about affordable housing. I came away from reading this book realizing that my own views on the topic are somewhat narrow. Until reading the book, I had not really given intentional communities much thought as a serious approach to addressing homelessness.
  5. The book embraces a research approach called ethnography. Very common in anthropology, this approach involves writing about something as you live it. Eric wrote this book based on his participation and residence in a few key intentional communities. He filmed and interviewed hundreds of residents and typed up his notes on site. Not only did he earn ‘street cred,’ he also applied it directly to his research.
  6. One of the book’s messages is that researchers may try to appear neutral, but we all have biases.[1] I can relate to this message, having personally worked 10 years as a front-line community worker with persons experiencing homelessness. Personal take-ways of mine from that work include the following propositions: don’t make it difficult for a person to seek emergency shelter; persons experiencing homelessness thrive when given the chance to engage in paid work; and persons experiencing homelessness almost always agree to live in affordable housing when it’s offered to them in an appropriate manner.
  7. The author’s own biases emerged from his own life experience with trauma, illicit drug use and homelessness. He discusses this brilliantly and powerfully in chapter three, which is arguably the best-written book chapter I’ve ever read. That chapter helped me understand both youth homelessness and illicit drug use.
  8. This would be a good book for students to read in a graduate university seminar on research methods. And chapter two itself would be a great stand-alone reading to assign to graduate students in such a seminar. However, in order to properly understand much of the book’s language, concepts and arguments, a reader would likely need to have at least one university degree in the social sciences (I personally think the book puts too much emphasis on what social theorists have said over the years).
  9. The book could have done a better job of articulating the drawbacks of intentional communities. To be fair, the author does acknowledge that the drawbacks of intentional communities can include: “drug problems, faction-led power struggles and a failure to provide adequate transitional experiences for people wishing to reclaim their role in society” (p. 300). But on the whole, the book contains very little discussion about: some of these communities lacking running water, heating and cooking facilities; how prone some of their residents are to property theft; and the extent to which such communities are vulnerable to being targeted by law enforcement officials.
  10. The book misses an important opportunity to discuss the practical ways government and the non-profit sector can support intentional communities. I was left wondering what kind of funding could be directed at such communities, and what specific services should be supported. Also, the book suggests that supporting intentional communities can be much cheaper than supporting more conventional forms of affordable housing, but no breakdown is provided as to how much it would cost to assist them.

In sum: This book, which took a lot of courage to write, doesn’t shy away from discussing the awkward. And many advocates of the tiny-house movement may find this book to be inspirational. The book also reminds me of advice I once got from a supervisor at Toronto’s Homes First Society: “When housing’s being developed for marginalized populations, people with homes shouldn’t try to tell people without homes what their housing ought to look like.” 

Eric Weissman patiently answered all of my questions via email as I prepared this review. I also wish to thank Adam Melnyk, Bernie Pauly, Marion Steele and Vincent St-Martin for their assistance.

[1] In the social sciences, positivists tend to view themselves as neutral observers, merely trying to find evidence. By contrast, interpretivists tend to openly acknowledge and embrace their biases (see this short article for more on this distinction).

 

 

Ten things to know about affordable housing in Alberta

Ten things to know about affordable housing in Alberta

by | Jun 30, 2019 | Aboriginal Peoples, Alberta, Alternative Federal Budget, Calgary, Ending Homelessness, Fiscal policy, Government, Government Funding, Homeless, Housing, Housing First, Income Inequality, Indigenous peoples, Policy, Poverty, Poverty Reduction, Research and Data, Ron Kneebone, seniors, Social Housing, Social Policy

Ten things to know about affordable housing in Alberta

People without affordable housing suffer from poor health outcomes, have difficulty finding and sustaining employment and are at greater risk of having their children removed by child welfare authorities.

Here are 10 things to know about affordable housing in Alberta specifically:

  1. The NDP government of Rachel Notley undertook important initiatives pertaining to affordable housing. In its 2016 budget, the Notley government announced the near doubling of provincial spending on housing. This represented a total of $892 million in new funding, spanning a five-year period.
  2. According to the most recent Census, 11.4% of Alberta households experience core housing need, representing more than 164,000 households. In order to assess housing need for Canadians, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation uses a measure called core housing need. A household is said to be in core housing need if, out of financial necessity, they either pay more than 30% of their gross household income on housing, live in housing requiring major repairs, or live in housing with insufficient bedrooms for the household size in question (as determined by the National Occupancy Standards).
  3. Seniors living alone in Alberta face particularly high rates of core housing need. Nearly 34% of senior (65+) females living alone in Alberta were in core housing need in 2011, while the figure for senior (65+) males living alone was just under 26%. 
  4. Female lone-parent households in Alberta also face a particularly high rate of core housing need. More than 27% of these households were in core housing need in 2011. However, that figure likely dropped after the NDP government of Rachel Notley introduced the Alberta Child Benefit, a major feature of the 2016 Alberta budget.
  5. Members of Alberta First Nations also experience very high rates of core housing need. In fact, the rate of core housing need for Status Indians is nearly 25%—more than double the rate for non-Indigenous households in the province. And get this: these core need figures do not account for households living on reserve (if they did, that figure would be much greater). I should also note that more than 25% of  persons experiencing absolute homelessness in Alberta identify as being Indigenous, even though Indigenous peoples make up just 7% of Alberta’s total population.
  6. Housing typically constitutes a larger share of spending for low-income households (compared with middle- and higher-income households). And as the figure below illustrates, that phenomenon got measurably worse for low-income households in Alberta between 2010 and 2016.

    Source. Kneebone, R., & Wilkins, M. G. (2018). Social Policy Trends: Paying for the Essentials: Shelter, Food and Energy Consumption by Household Income Quintile for 2010 and 2016. The School of Public Policy Publications, 11. Retrieved from Policy School’s website: https://www.policyschool.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Social-Trends-Engel-Curves-July-2018.pdf

  7. On a per capita basis, Alberta has far fewer subsidized housing units than the rest of Canada. According to the most recent Census, subsidized housing represents just 2.9% of Alberta’s housing units; for Canada as a whole, the figure is 4.2%.
  8. Some Alberta cities have much more low-cost rental housing (per capita) than others. The visual below shows the range of private market rents paid on one- and two-bedroom apartments across Alberta’s seven major cities. The light-coloured bars show the range of rents paid on the second quintile (i.e., the second-poorest quintile) of private market rents. The next darkest bar shows the range of rents paid on the third quintile (i.e., the middle quintile) of rents, while the darkest bars define the range of rents paid on the fourth quintile of rents. Among the seven major cities, Medicine Hat appears to have the most low-cost rental housing units (per capita), and Calgary the fewest.

    Notes. Monthly rent quintiles by city in 2017. Data provided to Ron Kneebone (University of Calgary) by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The range of rents paid on the first and fifth quintiles are not reported due to confidentiality reasons.

  9. Going forward, the impact of the federal government’s National Housing Strategy will be modest. Recent analysis by Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) projects future federal housing spending to actually decrease over the next decade (relative to Gross Domestic Product). The same analysis projects that total spending on Indigenous housing by Canada’s federal government will be “substantially lower” going forward. (For a general overview of the National Housing Strategy, see this analysis.)
  10. There are considerable cost savings to be realized when investing in affordable housing, especially when the tenants have serious mental health challenges. Subsidized housing for vulnerable subpopulations (including persons with mental health challenges) that is accompanied by professional staff support is referred to as supportive housing. Recent analysis in Calgary estimates considerable cost savings in the health and justice sectors attributable to formerly-homeless persons receiving supportive housing.

In Sum. For a more comprehensive look at affordable housing in Alberta, see this year’s Alberta Alternative Budget (AAB). Full disclosure: I was primary author of the chapter on affordable housing and homelessness.

I wish to thank the following individuals for invaluable assistance with the housing chapter of this year’s AAB: Meaghan Bell, John Kmech, Claire Noble, Chidom Otogwu, Steve Pomeroy, Ron Kneebone, Vincent St. Martin, John Veenstra and one anonymous reviewer. Any errors are mine.

Homelessness, harm reduction and Housing First

Homelessness, harm reduction and Housing First

by | May 16, 2019 | Aboriginal Peoples, Alberta, Calgary, Harm Reduction, Homeless, Housing, Housing First, Indigenous peoples, Point in time Count, Poverty, Social Policy

Homelessness, harm reduction and Housing First

I was recently invited to give a presentation at a two-day event discussing the overdose crisis and First Nations, with a focus on southern Alberta. My presentation (slide deck available here) focused on homelessness, substance use, harm reduction and Housing First.

With this in mind, here are 10 things to know:

  1. Indigenous peoples are overrepresented among persons experiencing absolute homelessness in Alberta. According to results of the last province-wide Point-in-Time homelessness count, Indigenous peoples represent 7% of Alberta’s total population, but 26% of persons experiencing absolute homelessness in the province’s seven largest cities. A similar phenomenon exists right across Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
  2. To truly understand homelessness among Indigenous peoples, it is important to understand flow between communities. Most Indigenous peoples experiencing absolute homelessness in Alberta’s major cities report not being from the community in question. In Calgary, for example, just 11% of Indigenous peoples experiencing absolute homelessness report always having lived in Calgary.
  3. A major study is about to explore factors behind the flow of First Nations people between southern Alberta communities. Specifically, it will look at those who end up experiencing absolute homelessness in Calgary. Its research team consists of Jodi Bruhn, Gabrielle Linsdstrom, Allan Moscovitch and Steve Pomeroy. More information on this project can be found in last fall’s Request for Proposals. The research is being funded by the Calgary Homeless Foundation.
  4. Traumatic events are an important factor leading a homeless person to use drugs. A 2015 Winnipeg study asked what factors made a homeless person more likely to be a person who uses drugs (PWUD). Traumatic events, especially residential school history, were found to be one of the most important factors. Other factors identified in the study as leading a person to use drugs included mental and physical health problems (i.e., people self-medicate). What’s more, a recent First Nations Health Authority report from British Columbia identifies factors that lead to substance use. They include: racism; intergenerational trauma (e.g., residential schools); and limited access to mental health and addiction treatment (which is often reported by members of First Nations).
  5. Homeless shelters do not and cannot adequately respond to the overdose crisis. A 2014 study looked at the use of homeless shelters in Atlantic Canada (it looked at all four Atlantic provinces). It found that shelters focus on providing shelter and do not have a strong mandate to fully support PWUDs. A 2018 report went further, identifying the following barriers in some homeless shelters in Canada: clients having to ask staff to access harm reduction supplies (to be discussed below); shelters refusing services to people under the influence; and rigid entry process (e.g., extensive paperwork, the need for multiple pieces of documentation).
  6. It is very challenging for staff in homeless shelters to properly engage with people who use drugs, largely because on-site use of illicit substances is prohibited. To put it bluntly, staff give out supplies but forbid the on-site use of drugs. Shelter washrooms can therefore become “de facto unsupervised consumption sites” (p. 87).
  7. Harm reduction focuses on reducing harm caused by drug use without requiring total abstinence. Harm reduction approaches include the distribution of condoms, clean syringes and safe inhalation kits. There is solid evidence supporting the view that harm reduction approaches: reduce risk-taking behaviour; reduce the risk of transmission of blood-borne diseases; prevent overdoses; reduce crime; and increase contact with other supports (including healthcare supports).
  8. Supervised consumption services are one form of harm reduction. According to this report, they “consist of providing a safe, hygienic environment in which people can use drugs with sterile equipment under the supervision of trained staff or volunteers” (p. 2). As of February 2019, 28 supervised consumption services sites were operating under an exemption from Canada’s federal government.
  9. Supervised consumption services have proven to be very effective in southern Alberta. During 2018 alone, Calgary’s supervised consumption site saw nearly 52,000 visits, resulting in more than 700 overdose reversals. Also during 2018 alone, Lethbridge’s site saw nearly 128,000 site visits, resulting in more than 1,300 overdose reversals.
  10. Housing First is an approach whereby people in need of affordable housing receive housing without having to first prove their ‘housing readiness.’ According to this study: “Harm reduction is a key principle of Housing First, where individuals are not required or expected to undergo treatment for substance use or to abstain in order to access and keep permanent housing” (p. 1). However, Housing First does not mean housing only. That is, other social supports—including drug and alcohol treatment, which may lead to reduced substance use—are crucial to the success of Housing First.

In Sum. To understand high rates of homelessness and substance use among Indigenous peoples, it is important to consider the roles played by trauma and racism. It is also important to understand flow between communities, as well as the inadequacies of homeless shelters. Harm reduction and Housing First remain important policy responses to the overdose crisis.

 

I wish to thank the following individuals for invaluable assistance with this blog post: Lorraine Barnaby, Shannon Beavis, Jodi Bruhn, Julia Christensen, Arlene Haché, Leslie Hill, Diana Krecsy, Bren Little Light, Katelyn Lucas, Adam Melnyk, Susan McGee, Katrina Milaney, Gautam Mukherjee, Bernie Pauly, Steven Richardson, Chris Sarin, Quentin Sinclair, Lorie Steer, Vincent St-Martin and Alina Turner. Any errors are mine.

What Impact will the 2019 Federal Budget have on Canada’s Housing Market?

What Impact will the 2019 Federal Budget have on Canada’s Housing Market?

by | Apr 25, 2019 | Alternative Federal Budget, Canada, Federal Budget, Housing

What Impact will the 2019 Federal Budget have on Canada’s Housing Market?

On March 19, Canada’s federal finance minister tabled the Trudeau government’s 2019 budget titled Investing in the Middle Class. Key social policy announcements include a new Canada Training Credit, increased funding for municipalities, some increased funding for women’s organizations and increased earnings’ exemptions for low-income seniors.

Budget 2019 also has implications for housing—and on that front, here are 10 things to know:

  1. Budget 2019 introduces a new First-Time Home Buyer Incentive, creating so-called ‘shared-equity mortgages.’ This program fronts a portion of the required down payment for a ‘middle income’ household trying to buy a home for the first time. The federal government contribution is set at 5% of the value of an existing home, or 10% of the value of a newly-built home. The household does not pay interest on the federal loan portion; however, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) ends up owning 5% or 10% of the home’s value—and on the home’s sale, CMHC gets back 5% or 10% of the appreciated (or depreciated) value. Participants must be first-time home buyers with annual household incomes of under $120,000. The maximum value of the mortgage plus CMHC support will be four times household income (i.e., $480,000). This program is expected to be operational by September 2019. Federal officials say they expect approximately 100,000 first-time home buyers to take advantage of this program over the next three years.
  2. The Home Buyers’ Plan withdrawal limit has been raised from $25,000 to $35,000. This is the program that allows first-time homeowners in Canada to borrow from their Registered Retirement Savings Plan for a down payment. This increased limit is available for withdrawals made after March 19, 2019. Budget 2019 also proposes that individuals who go through a separation or divorce be permitted to participate in the Plan, even if they’re not buying for the first time.
  3. The good news on the housing affordability front is that the home ownership measures contained in Budget 2019 will likely increase the average rental vacancy rate and exert downward pressure on average rent levels. That’s because some households currently renting will now become home owners, creating a bit of slack in the rental market. This is good news for prospective renters and existing renters. Some landlords won’t be happy though—with reduced demand for rental housing, they may not be able to charge as much rent or be as selective in terms of which tenants they rent to.
  4. The bad news on the housing affordability front is that these same measures will likely exert upward pressure on the average price of a new home. That’s because when you increase demand for a product, its price typically goes up as well. This is good news for current home owners, especially when they decide to sell, but it’s bad news for prospective home owners who aren’t eligible for the initiatives.
  5. Incentivizing households of modest means to become home owners isn’t necessarily good public policy. In a 2006 report, Michael Mendelson argued that Canadian housing prices are subject to large price swings. Indeed, housing prices do not only go up—for example, from January 2018 until January 2019, the price of detached homes in Vancouver fell by approximately 9%. Mendelson argues that such price decreases are bad news for owners of modest means who need to sell during such a downturn, especially if they haven’t been owners for very long. He cautioned that, in such situations, those households can lose their life savings.
  6. Incentivizing households of modest means to become home owners also runs counter to at least one action recently introduced at the federal level in Canada. I refer here to the introduction of the mortgage stress test, largely in response to unprecedented consumer debt levels (and against which Canada’s home builders have recently expressed strong opposition). This measure was introduced by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, an arm’s length regulator (and endorsed by the federal minister of finance).
  7. Canada’s Rental Construction Financing Initiative, originally scheduled to be in place for four years, will now be extended to nine years and provided with an additional $10 billion in loans. Originally announced in the 2016 federal budget, this program provides low-cost loans for the construction of new rental housing for ‘middle income’ households. These loans are for developers (either non-profit or for-profit) and unit rents must be set 10% below full market potential. Funded projects must also meet two other important criteria: 1) achieve a standard 15% better than required by national codes for energy efficiency and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; and 2) have 10% of units accessible. With changes announced in the 2019 federal budget, the program is now expected to assist 42,500 new units across Canada, targeting areas of low rental supply. This represents federal loans totalling $829.5 million over nine years, starting in 2019–20. It’s expected that CMHC will make money on these loans.
  8. This budget announced a new $300 million program to improve energy efficiency in new and existing housing. It is being allocated to, and will be administered by, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM). In fact, three energy-efficiency initiatives for residential, commercial and multi-unit buildings worth a total of just over $1 billion annually were announced in this year’s federal budget, all of which will be administered by the FCM. This includes one $300 million initiative specifically for energy efficiency in social/affordable housing (new and existing).
  9.  This budget announced that the Canada Revenue Agency will receive $50 million over five years to create audit teams in high-risk regions of the country. One can infer from this that the federal government believes that home prices, especially in Toronto and Vancouver, have been driven up by investors flipping houses and not paying their fair share of taxes in the process (a practice that makes houses more expensive while denying revenue to the federal government).
  10.  A budget supported by a more robust social spending framework could do a lot for both affordable housing and homelessness. A major reason people have housing affordability challenges is that they have low incomes. Addressing low incomes requires a well-funded social spending framework that would reduce income inequality. This year’s Alternative Federal Budget (AFB) provided such a framework. The AFB is a fully costed-out advocacy document that includes funding increases for post-secondary education, seniors’ benefits, child care, First Nations’ infrastructure, social assistance, and affordable housing (including supportive housing for vulnerable populations). It also proposes universal pharmacare. (Full disclosure: I was primary author of the AFB’s housing chapter.)

In sum. The Trudeau government’s 2019 federal budget contains very few initiatives explicitly geared toward affordable rental housing, and no new funding at all for absolute homelessness. The home-buying incentive measures will make it easier for some households to become homeowners; however, they may have unintended consequences as well. The extension of the Rental Construction Financing Initiative is good news for housing affordability, while new funding for auditing may have the effect of exerting downward pressure on the price of homes—especially new condos in Toronto and Vancouver. Far-reaching changes to housing affordability would require bold changes to fiscal policy, such as those proposed in the 2018 Alternative Federal Budget.

I wish to thank Helen Harris, Ron Kneebone, Marc Lee, Scott Leon, Michael Mendelson, Claire Noble, Brian Pincott, Shayne Ramsay, Tim Richter, Steve Saretsky, Marion Steele, Ray Sullivan, Greg Suttor, and three anonymous reviewers for invaluable assistance with this blog post. Any errors are mine.

Nick Falvo is a Calgary-based research consultant, a research associate at the Carleton University Centre for Community Innovation, and a CCPA research associate.

When tenants ‘graduate’ from Housing First programs: 10 things to know

When tenants ‘graduate’ from Housing First programs: 10 things to know

by | Sep 6, 2018 | Uncategorized

When tenants ‘graduate’ from Housing First programs: 10 things to know

Nick Falvo is Director of Research and Data at the Calgary Homeless Foundation.

With limited resources at their disposal, System Planners—such as the Calgary Homeless Foundation (CHF)—like to know how long various subgroups of persons experiencing homelessness will likely require various forms of housing support. With this in mind, Ali Jadidzadeh and I have co-authored a study that appears in Housing Studies—a leading housing journal. Titled Patterns of exits from housing in a homelessness system of care: The case of Calgary, Alberta, the study looks at the case of CHF-funded Housing First programs.[1]

Here are 10 things to know:

 

  1. The study uses survival analysis and hazard models. To quote from the study: “[S]urvival analysis tells us when we can expect new housing units to become available for new tenants, and which programme types will have available units more quickly… [while] hazard analysis can tell us which tenants will be most likely to graduate, based on the individual characteristics of those tenants” (p. 7).
  1. The data in the study comes from Calgary’s Homelessness Management Information System (HMIS). Gathered between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2015, the data pertain to people residing in Housing First programs funded by CHF. Literally thousands of people were involved in this data collection effort, including: persons living in Housing First programs who signed release of information forms; staff in Calgary’s Homeless-Serving System of Care who inputted the data; CHF staff who provided training and support to community on how to use HMIS; as well as CHF staff who then cleaned the data.[2] The data in question were gathered on each person residing in Housing First every three months. An intake form was first completed by a case manager at intake into the program; then, another assessment form got completed every three months. There was also a form completed at exit from the program. These forms ask basic demographic information, as well as information about education, income, employment, history of family violence, use of health services and involvement in corrections. Most of the data gathered is based on self-reporting by an experienced case manager who receives accreditation. Blank copies of these forms can be accessed here.
  2. Key to the study is a concept known as graduation. Alberta’s provincial government provides homelessness funding to System Planners (such as CHF). To quote directly from the study: “In line with provincial programme guidelines in place during the period under consideration in the present study, a client is said to graduate from CHF-funded housing when they no longer require ‘housing support’ (i.e. case management). And in the case of temporary housing funded by CHF, a client is said to graduate once they complete programme requirements and move into a more permanent form of housing—either subsidized or unsubsidized…” (p. 3). [Note: subsequent to the period of study, the definition of graduation has changed for Calgary.] For a recent academic consideration of graduation, see this 2018 article.
  1. One of the study’s findings is that single adults without dependents require housing support longest, and families for the least amount of time. Put differently: single adults without dependents who have recently been homeless require social work[3] support longer than other groups. I suspect a few factors may be at play here. First, single adults without dependents sometimes don’t have dependents because their children have been taken into child protection (possibly stemming from the parent’s challenges with mental health and/or substance use). It’s therefore intuitive that a person with such challenges would require social work support for a longer period of time. Also, in Alberta, singles without dependents receive less income assistance than other groups, making it more challenging to live independently (I encourage people to read the poverty chapter in this year’s Alberta Alternative Budget, which argues that the poverty gap for singles without dependents is much larger than for other groups).
  1. Women require social work support for longer periods than men (even when we control for employment and income). In fact, the study finds that men are 32% more likely to graduate than women. As noted in the study: “One possible reason for this is that women experiencing homelessness often find themselves in relationships with people who in turn jeopardize their housing stability…” (p. 20).
  1. Having a history of addictions does not appear to affect a client’s graduation rate. This is consistent with findings from the At Home/Chez Soi study, which found that formerly-homeless persons who consume large amounts drugs and/or alcohol maintain housing about as well as other formerly-homeless persons. This reaffirms the importance of the Housing First approach, which holds that a person should not have to go to a drug or alcohol treatment program as a precondition to receiving permanent housing.
  1. Older clients have lower graduation rates (meaning that it takes longer for them to move on to independence). Put differently: older people who have recently been homeless require social work support longer than other groups. The study notes: “Older clients having lower graduation rates should also not be surprising to many readers, as the health outcomes of seniors are poorer than those of younger clients” (p. 21). This is an especially important findings for System Planners across Canada, as older adults are making up an increasingly large share of the homeless population. In Calgary’s homeless shelter system, adults aged 55 and over now account for 19% of bed spaces on any given night; in 2008, they accounted for just 9% of all bed spaces.[4] This trend will likely continue for at least another decade or two.
  1. Findings pertaining to Indigenous peoples have already had ramifications on the ground. Indeed, the study finds that Indigenous peoples in the study needed support longer than non-Indigenous peoples. This holds even after controlling for income, education, and a history of family violence. Future research is needed that looks at factors that inhibit success among Indigenous peoples in Housing First.[5] These findings have also informed CHF’s engagement strategies with Indigenous peoples, including CHF”s hiring of an Indigenous advisor (since promoted to Director), a business case for two supportive housing buildings for Indigenous peoples (not yet funded) and future Indigenous-focused research (to be discussed in future blog posts).
  1. The study finds that having a source of income is positively correlated with graduation rates (i.e., it speeds up the move toward independence)—and this has already led to several changes in Calgary’s Homeless-Serving System of Care. This finding has helped inform an effort by CHF to identify, in collaboration with community partners, specific individuals in CHF-funded Housing First programs who, with some additional (short term) financial support, could likely graduate. This particular effort has been taking place for roughly one year; thus far, it has involved approximately 170 individuals with considerable success. The additional financial assistance provided varies by individual and is not intended to be permanent.
  1. In Calgary’s family homelessness sector, the study’s finding pertaining to income has led to the development of a new Adaptive Case Management (ACM) approach. ACM has a strong focus on providing short-term financial assistance to households in need (and it is discussed in detail in our Family System Planning Framework).

In Sum. This study finds that some groups move on from Housing First programs more quickly than others, and that some factors (such as a source of income) appear to accelerate graduation from Housing First. Because CHF embeds research into its day-to-day operations, we were well-positioned to start acting on findings well before the research was published.

For assistance with this blog post, I wish to thank Tim Aubry, Carla Babiuk, Victoria Ballance, Candice Giammarino, Ali Jadidzadeh, Stephen Metraux, Shane Rempel and one anonymous source. Any errors are mine.

[1] For a full copy of the article, please email me at nick@calgaryhomeless.com.

[2] Note: Ali Jadidzadeh has spent many hours cleaning this data so that it can be used for analysis—not only for this study, but for other stakeholders in community, including other researchers.

[3] People working in Calgary’s Homeless-Serving System of Care refer to such support as ‘case management.’

[4] These figures apply to single adults without dependents. The 19% figure is for 2017.

[5] Some research has already been undertaken on this in Edmonton. Check out this 2011 report and this 23-minute video.Blog PDF download here.