Homelessness, harm reduction and Housing First

by admin | 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:

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.
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.
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.
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).
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).
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).
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).
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.
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.
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.

Ten Things to Know About Social Assistance in Alberta

by admin | Jul 24, 2017 | Alberta, Ending Homelessness, Government, Point in time Count, Poverty, Research and Data, Ron Kneebone, Social Assistance, Social Housing

Ten Things to Know About Social Assistance in Alberta

This is part two of a two-part blog series on social assistance. Part one, which looks at social assistance across Canada, can be accessed here.

As recently noted by my colleague Rachel Campbell, last fall’s Point-in-Time (PiT) Count of persons experiencing homelessness across Alberta yielded interesting findings pertaining to social assistance. The report found that a mere 7% of persons experiencing homelessness in Calgary indicated that “welfare/income assistance” was one of their sources of income; across the rest of Alberta, meanwhile, the average was 29%.

On April 20, Calgary Homeless Foundation convened a community panel discussion in the hope of uncovering potential reasons for this discrepancy. Panel members were Andrew Joo (Calgary Drop-In), Simon Lai (Woods Homes) and Ellie Hall (Calgary Legal Guidance).[1]

Here are 10 things to know:

It’s always been challenging for households to qualify for—and maintain—social assistance in Alberta. Major reasons for this include: governments wanting to spend less money, policy makers fearing that social assistance receipt will make gainful employment less attractive, and elected officials (and their constituents) believing that unemployed persons have themselves to blame for their misfortune. (None of these points are limited to Alberta; all of this was discussed in Part 1 of the present blog series.)
In 1986, the Edmonton Social Planning Council published a controversial document. The Other Welfare Manual was an advocacy document that helped low-income individuals (and their advocates) navigate Alberta’s social assistance system. It was updated multiple times and soon became controversial, in part because it made it more challenging for social assistance officials to deny benefits to households. Intake workers were told by their supervisors that they could refuse to see clients who wanted to bring the manual into the intake interview.
In the 1990s, rules for social assistance receipt in Alberta became harsher and benefit levels were reduced. Social assistance administrators began to put an intense focus on ensuring recipients looked for gainful employment. It subsequently became more difficult for people to be deemed eligible for social assistance. As I’ve written before: “a ‘single employable adult’ without dependents received almost $9,000 annually in 1992 (that figure includes tax credits); by 2007, this figure had shrunk to less than $6,000.”[2]
Since that time, it’s been even more difficult for people to access social assistance throughout the province. For example, previously mothers were not considered “employable” until their youngest child was in school. This policy changed to a policy stipulating that mothers should look for work as soon as their youngest child turned two. According to Ellie Hall (Calgary Legal Guidance): “Until recently [when Alberta Works was in the news for forcing clients to stand in the cold waiting in line for an appointment with an intake worker] clients could not schedule an intake appointment. They could only start lining up outside the office, sometimes for hours, and were still often turned away and told to come back another day and start over” (personal communication, May 2, 2017).
Across Alberta municipalities, it’s possible that there are discrepancies in the way social assistance offices interpret rules and administer benefits. Clients and front-line workers often report that rules are not always interpreted consistently across offices. It may be that some Calgary offices are stricter in dealing with persons experiencing homelessness than are offices in other Alberta cities (such inter-office variability may also exist in Canada’s other provinces and territories.)
In Alberta, persons experiencing homelessness are not eligible to receive certain forms of social assistance. They can qualify for Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH), but not for Alberta Works; the former is for persons with permanent, severe disabilities, while the latter is not (yet, both are forms of social assistance). At one time, individuals living in a homeless shelter could access some Alberta Works benefits money each month; but today, they receive nothing directly from Alberta Works until they find a permanent address (however, the services provided to them by the shelter likely benefit from some provincial funding). This is not the case in all provinces. For example, Quebec lets clients in homeless shelters access the equivalent of Alberta Works.
Earlier this year, the Alberta government streamlined the AISH application process. More information on these changes can be found here (and a CBC News story can be found here). This move happened in response to criticism from the provincial auditor general. However, it’s not yet clear how much of an impact this will have in practice or how it will impact people experiencing homelessness. It’s also important to note that AISH benefit levels are higher than comparable programs in other provinces; see point #8 of this previous post.
Even though the cost of rental housing is substantially higher in Calgary than in other Alberta municipalities, social assistance benefit levels are the same across the entire province. One possible reason for this is that the cost of rent should not be the only variable used to assess cost of living—other important variables include the cost of transportation, food and fuel (and in some Alberta communities, those costs may be greater than in Calgary).[3] In other provinces and territories, benefit levels do vary by jurisdiction, in part to reflect the higher cost of living in more remote areas of that province or territory. This is the case in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and all three territories.[4] In this recent presentation, Ron Kneebone and Margarita Wilkins argue that social assistance benefits levels in Alberta should vary by municipality.
When it comes to the percentage of each city’s homeless population receiving social assistance, one factor that may help explain the discrepancy between Calgary and the rest of Alberta may be labour market attachment. As Rachel Campbell noted in her recent blog post, results of last fall’s PiT Count found a discrepancy between Calgary and the rest of Alberta in terms of individuals experiencing homelessness indicating “employment” as a source of income. In Calgary, 33% of respondents indicated “employment” as a source of income, compared with fewer than 10% in the rest of the province. Since it’s harder for persons who are gainfully employed to receive social assistance, it would be logical if this explains much of the discrepancy between rates of social assistance receipt among persons experiencing homelessness in Calgary versus other Alberta cities.
Today, the Alberta government is under considerable political pressure to control spending. For 2017-18, the provincial government is forecasting a $10.3 billion deficit. And for 2018-19, its target is a $9.7 billion deficit. At the same time, the job vacancy picture looks bleak, and social assistance caseloads are rising (you can read about this here and here).

In Sum. The question asked at the outset of this two-part blog series was: “Why do a smaller percentage of persons experiencing homelessness in Calgary receive social assistance than their counterparts in other Alberta cities?” I offer three possible answers to this question: 1) It’s always been difficult for anyone to access social assistance in Alberta, as is the case in every Canadian province and territory; 2) higher rates of employment among people experiencing homelessness in Calgary may explain why a smaller percentage of Calgary’s homeless population accesses social assistance; and 3) variations in how staff from one office to another interpret social assistance eligibility rules may also help explain the discrepancy between Calgary and other cities.

The author wishes to thank the following individuals for invaluable assistance with this blog post: Rachel Campbell, Hilary Chapple, Louise Gallagher, Ellie Hall, Coleen Hutton, Andrew Joo, Nigel Kirk, Kara Layher, Lindsay Lenny, John Stapleton, Anne Tweddle, Donna Wood and one anonymous reviewer. Any errors lie with the author.

You can view a PDF version of this blog post here: Ten Things to Know About Social Assistance in Alberta

[1] Multiple attempts were made—via official channels—to have a Government of Alberta official also participate on the panel. Regrettably, none of those attempts proved fruitful.

[2] All of these figures are expressed in 2015 constant dollars.

[3] For a succinct overview of a recent attempt to calculate the cost-of-living variation across Alberta communities, see this report; and for more detail, see this web link.

[4] In the words of my colleague, John Stapleton: “I don’t think any jurisdiction has a good rationale for its rates. They are historical rather than rational and reflect a massive elixir of compounds that seldom make sense. Every so often, a province or territory will compare and set rates according to some external standard like the consumer price index or cost of items. It seldom lasts long” (personal communication, April 30, 2017).

Ten Things to Know About Social Assistance in Canada

by admin | May 8, 2017 | Alberta, Determinants of Homelessness, Ending Homelessness, Pit Count, Point in time Count, Poverty Reduction, Research and Data, Social Assistance

Ten Things to Know About Social Assistance in Canada

The present blog post is the first in a two-part series on social assistance. (Part two, which looks at social assistance in Alberta, can be viewed here). The series is inspired by recent data captured in Alberta’s 2016 Point-in-Time Count of Homelessness suggesting that just a small percentage of persons experiencing homelessness in Calgary receive social assistance (see point #7 of this previous post).

Ron Kneebone (Professor of Economics at the University of Calgary) and Katherine White (Yukon’s Deputy Finance Minister) have referred to social assistance as “the final layer of the public social safety net — designed to catch those people in need of support but unable to find it from family, friends or non-government agencies…”

(I’d argue that, in larger urban centres, social assistance is in fact the second-last layer before the homeless-serving sector…)

Here are 10 things to know:

Every Canadian province and territory has its own social assistance system—that is, its own legislation, its own regulations and its own policies.First Nations with self-government agreements have their own “income assistance” programs. And for First Nations without self-government agreements, income assistance is funded by Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (but “aligned with the rates and eligibility criteria for off-reserve residents of the reference province or territory”).[1] In the words of Martin Papillon (Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Ottawa): “First Nations administer income assistance on behalf of federal authorities, yet they follow rules and objectives established by provinces.”[2]
There aren’t enough jobs to go around,[3] and it’s well-known that Employment Insurance benefits provide only temporary coverage (and only cover a small percentage of jobless persons).[4] Without social assistance, many people without jobs would be destitute. This places elected officials and public servants in a conundrum—while wanting to provide some basic income assistance for those without work, they don’t want to ‘make life so comfortable’ for those persons so as to discourage them from actively looking for work. They also don’t want workers to quit their jobs in the belief that social assistance provides a ‘good living.’ In other words, by design, social assistance has two contradictory objectives: 1) to give people enough money to live on; and 2) to not give people enough money to live on.
In Canada, social assistance coverage expanded in the post-World War II era; it then contracted in the 1980s and 1990s. In the years following World War II, Canada experienced low unemployment, high levels of tax revenue and a strong feeling of collective solidarity. During this time, senior orders of government designed and funded a social assistance system with benefit levels and rules that were generous relative to today.[5] From the mid-1960s until the mid-1970s, this expansion was especially fast.[6] (For more on the political and economic factors that led to the post-1970s contraction, see this 2014 article by Jim Stanford.)
Most people agree that social assistance benefit levels are insufficient to live on. Across Canada, 70% of households on social assistance are “food insecure.” In fact, it’s rare to see an elected official or senior public servant even attempt to make a case that social assistance benefit levels are sufficient. In 1995, an Ontario provincial cabinet minister attempted to do this; he was roundly ridiculed. In Alberta, a “single employable adult” on social assistance receives approximately $8,000 annually to live on. (To see social assistance benefit levels for yourself, check out the most recent Welfare in Canada)
Very few immigrants (relative to Canada’s general population) receive social assistance.That’s a finding of research done by Tracy Smith-Carrier and Jennifer Mitchell (and that research is presented in Chapter 17 of this 2015 book on social assistance in Canada). However, a very large percentage of members of First Nations receive “income assistance” (this issue is discussed in detail by Martin Papillon in Chapter 18 of the aforementioned book).
In recent years, there’s been a substantial increase in persons with disabilities receiving social assistance. At a national level, John Stapleton and Anne Tweddle have written about this here. They find this increase to be especially apparent in Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia (and they find it to be most pronounced in Alberta). For a recent review of what this trend looks like in Alberta, see this recent report.
The inadequacy of social assistance puts a strain on other parts of Canada’s social welfare system. Three specific points are worth making here. First, if social assistance benefit levels were higher, there would be less demand for emergency shelter beds (that’s one of the findings of this recent report). Second, most of the government funding required for social housing in Canada is for the “rent supplement” component of the assistance (i.e. financial assistance to cover the gap between what it costs the operator to pay for the housing, on the one hand, and what a low-income household can afford, on the other). There’d be less need for social housing funding if social assistance benefit levels were higher. Third, low income is associated with poor health outcomes,[7] which in turn lead to higher health care costs. It’s therefore likely higher social assistance benefit levels would reduce health care costs in Canada.
Many landlords discriminate against tenants who report social assistance as a source of income. This is commonly known by both social assistance recipients and their advocates. And in 2008, this theory was put to the test in a study where ‘mock phone calls’ were made to Toronto landlords; during the study, researchers found solid empirical support for the claim that landlords do indeed discriminate against social assistance recipients.
Social assistance administrators do not track what happens to people who are denied coverage. In other words, when a person’s application for social assistance is rejected, there’s no systematic effort made to track what happens to them. However, researchers do sometimes look at what happens after people stop receiving social assistance; one such Canadian study is available here.
A modest increase in social assistance benefit levels would likely reduce homelessness. A recent report estimates that modest increases in social assistance benefit levels would likely result in less need for emergency shelter beds for homeless persons. Specifically, the report suggests that a 15-20% increase in benefit levels for ‘single employables’ would likely result in a 15-20% decrease in demand for shelter beds.

In Sum. Across Canada, social assistance plays an important, but insufficient, role in poverty alleviation. Higher social assistance benefit levels would likely result in tangible outcomes, including less food insecurity, improved health outcomes and less homelessness. Part 2 of the present blog series will focus on the Alberta context.

The author wishes to thank Daniel Béland, Gerry Boychuk, Pierre-Marc Daigneault, Louise Gallagher, Seth Klein, Jennefer Laidley, Kara Layher, Lindsay Lenny, Michael Mendelson, Dionne Miazdyck-Shield, Munir Sheikh, Anne Tweddle and Donna Wood for invaluable assistance with this blog post. Any errors lie with the author.

Download a PDF of this blog post here: Ten Things to Know About Social Assistance in Canada

[1] An important exception is Ontario, where the provincial government is responsible for on-reserve income assistance. Martin Papillon briefly discusses this in Chapter 18 of this book.

[2] I’ve taken this quote from p. 334 of this book.

[3] For more on the relationship between the labour market and social assistance receipt, see Gerard Boychuk’s chapter in this 2015 book. Figure 2.2 in the chapter consists of a line graph suggestive of a strong correlation (R^{2 = –}0.88) between the percentage of Canada’s adult population receiving social assistance, and the employment rate, over time.

[4] For more on the inadequacy of Employment Insurance benefits, see the Employment Insurance chapter in the 2017 Alternative Federal Budget.

[5] This happened as part of an expansion of Canada’s entire social welfare system. For more on this, see this book by Dennis Guest.

[6] To learn more about this history, check out my PhD thesis, which can be downloaded here.

[7] This 2009 report, focusing on the Ontario context, looks specifically at health outcomes of social assistance recipients.

Advocacy in Canada’s Affordable Housing and Homelessness Sectors

by admin | Apr 24, 2017 | Alberta, Determinants of Homelessness, Ending Homelessness, Policy, Research and Data, Social Housing

Advocacy in Canada’s Affordable Housing and Homelessness Sectors

On January 24, I gave a presentation to students at the University of Calgary as part of the Certificate in Working with Homeless Populations program. The goal of this presentation was to discuss ways students could advocate to senior orders of government for better public policy that can help end homelessness.

My PowerPoint slides from the presentation can be downloaded here: Falvo_Homelessness Advocacy WHP 3 of 3 20jan2017.

This is the last of a 3-part presentation that I delivered that day. A blog post based on Part 1 can be found here, while a blog post based on Part 2 can be found here.

Here are 10 things to know about advocacy in Canada’s homelessness and affordable housing sectors:

Advocacy can be defined as a collective effort to bring about changes to political priorities, funding levels, legislation, regulations or policies. It’s relevant to people working in the homeless-serving sector because, in addition to delivering services to clients on a day-to-day basis, many workers in that sector also want to see changes to public policy that would help end homelessness.
In the homelessness and affordable housing sectors, there are at least seven approaches to advocacy. They are: grassroots advocacy; direct action; rights-based advocacy; government-to-government advocacy; advocacy within Parliament; professionalized advocacy; and policy-based advocacy. Some people and groups take part in more than one type of advocacy; also, there’s considerable overlap among the different approaches.
People engaged in “grassroots advocacy” have often been directly affected by homelessness. Also, their effort likely has a very small budget. This often involves informal working relationships, as well as a strong volunteer component. Examples of grassroots advocacy in Canada’s homelessness and affordable housing sectors include: Calgary’s Client Action Committee; Vancouver’s Carnegie Community Action Project; Housing Action Now (in Toronto); Montreal’s Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain(FRAPRU); and Montreal’s Réseau d’aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes de Montréal (RAPSIM).
People who engage in “direct action” are very willing to be disruptive (i.e. sit-ins, protest, civil disobedience). Little effort is made to charm or cajole the audience (e.g., observers, media, etc.). Direct action often receives a considerable amount of media attention. Examples of groups who engage in direct action include CLAC-Montréal and the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.
The underlying argument of “rights-based advocacy” is that individuals should receive a social benefit because it’s their legal right to have it. This often means challenging interpretations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and invoking “economic, social and cultural rights.”[1] Rights-based advocacy is heavily dominated by people in the legal community. Examples of organizations that take this approach include Canada Without Poverty and the Right to Housing Coalition (organized by the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario). An example of a Calgary-based approach to rights-based advocacy is the Homeless Charter of Rights project.
Government-to-government advocacy, as well as advocacy within a legislature or parliament, has obvious importance. Examples of organizations that engage in the former approach include the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Assembly of First Nations. Examples of advocacy that take place within a legislature or parliament include Question Period, committee work and the legislative process.
“Professionalized advocacy” is often well-resourced and tries to positively reinforce what it sees as ‘good behaviour’ by government. This approach typically involves frequent meetings with elected officials—sometimes elected officials even seek out the group in question for their opinion and for background information. Such groups typically have multiple paid staff and sufficient resources to plan large events (e.g., conferences), hire consultants, commission research and produce web-based resources. Such organizations often provide services to their members (e.g. webinars, trainings). They also place emphasis on positive messaging with government (i.e. praising good behaviour, positive reinforcement). Canadian groups in the homelessness and affordable housing sector that engage in this approach include the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, Housing Partnership Canada and the National Housing Collaborative.
“Policy-based advocacy” is an approach whereby a specific policy or funding pitch is used to galvanize attention and lobby government. Examples include the Alternative Federal Budget, the One Percent Solution and “ending homelessness.” (As a self-proclaimed policy wonk myself, I like this approach very much.)
In the past decade, there’s been a change in tone in Canadian homelessness advocacy. Beginning in the mid-2000s, many homelessness advocates began making their cases to senior orders of government in Canada in new ways. Advocates started to emphasize what the non-profit sector could do differently, rather than how much more money senior orders of government needed to spend on social welfare programs. Increasingly, advocates also began using economic arguments in favour of action (by emphasizing the economic cost of homelessness to society) rather than a moral argument. This approach was especially popular among those practicing the professionalized approach; it has notbeen as popular within the direct action movement. I’ve previously blogged about this phenomenon here.
There’s a role for all of these approaches. There’s no inherent reason why all of these approaches can’t co-exist. Not only do they not need to compete; they can actually complement and reinforce each other. I would argue, for example, that direct action approaches ‘create space’ for professionalized approaches. What’s more, some people and groups may choose to practice a variety of approaches.

The author wishes to thank the following individuals for invaluable assistance with this blog post: Cathy Crowe, Katie-Sue Derejko, Louise Gallagher, Kara Layher, Allan Moscovitch, Emily Paradis, Steve Pomeroy, Kaitlin Schwan and Greg Suttor. Any errors lie with the author.

[1] For a consideration of whether economic, social and cultural rights can be litigated in courts, see this resource.

You can get a PDF version of this blog post here: Advocacy in Canada’s Affordable Housing and Homelessness Sectors

Public Policy and Homelessness: The Case of Calgary

by admin | Feb 21, 2017 | Alberta, Big City Charter, Chidom Otogwu, Determinants of Homelessness, Ending Homelessness, Housing, Poverty, Poverty Reduction, Ron Kneebone, Social Housing

Public Policy and Homelessness: The Case of Calgary

On January 24, I gave a presentation to students at the University of Calgary as part of the Certificate in Working with Homeless Populations program. The goal of this presentation was to convey the fact that public policy strongly impacts the number of homeless people in a given jurisdiction at any particular time.

A version of my PowerPoint slides, which are chock-full of visuals and references, can be downloaded here: Falvo Public Policy and Homelessness WHP 1 of 3

This is Part 1 of a 3-part presentation I gave that day. A blog post based on Part 2 can be found here, while a blog post based on Part 3 can be found here.

Here are 10 things to know:

1. Federal spending in Canada fell drastically from the early 1990s until the mid-2000s. In the early 1990s, federal spending (not counting intergovernmental transfers) represented 19% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). By the late-2000s, that figure had dropped to about 13%. That’s a remarkably sharp drop in such a short time.

2. Taxation fell sharply in Canada between the mid-1990s and the late-2000s. Looking at annual tax revenue expressed as a percentage of GDP (all orders of government combined) tax revenue in Canada represented 36% of GDP in the late-1990s. By 2012, that figure had dropped to below 31%. What’s more, Canada’s level of taxation was considerably above the average for OECD countries in the mid-1990s; today, our taxation level is well below the OECD average.

3. Federal spending on housing decreased substantially beginning in the early 1990s. In light of the trends discussed in points #1 and #2 above, this comes as little surprise to most people. For more on the federal role in housing policy, including a look at how it has evolved over the past several decades, see this 2013 conference paper.

4. Rental housing production in Canada fell sharply beginning in the late 1970s. This happened in part due to reductions in public spending on housing discussed in point #3 above. Other factors that likely led to this drop include high interest rates (which made it expensive for developers to finance new supply), a shrinking middle class (which resulted in less demand for rental units), provincial legislation pertaining to condominiums, and rent regulation.[1]

5. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the Alberta government began spending substantially less on housing.This decrease was drastic. Indeed, in 1995, the Alberta government devoted an amount worth 0.36% of its GDP to housing; just five years later, this amount had shrunk to a mere 0.10%. The Alberta government’s annual spending on housing didn’t start to increase again until the early 2000s.

6. In 1993, the Alberta government introduced strict reforms to social assistance. This entailed at least two things. First, the rules changed, meaning that provincial officials made it much more difficult for Albertans to qualify for social assistance. Second, the annual value of benefit levels for those who did qualify for social assistance dropped quite suddenly (and then continued to erode over time). Indeed, a ‘single employable adult’ without dependents received almost $9,000 annually in 1992 (that figure includes tax credits); by 2007, this figure had shrunk to less than $6,000[2] That’s a very sharp loss in annual income for a very low-income individual.

7. Alberta has much less rental housing than other provinces, and this gap has grown in the past 25 years. In 1990, Alberta had almost as many apartment rental units (on a per capita basis) as the rest of Canada. Then, beginning in the early 1990s, the amount of apartment rentals in Alberta started to decrease; today, Alberta has just half the number of apartment rental units (per capita) as the rest of Canada. There are three main reasons for this: the first being, historically, Alberta experienced higher rates of in-migration than other provinces; secondly, the Alberta government was not as keen as other provinces to subsidize housing for lower-income households; and lastly, Alberta has a relatively large number of high-income households (and higher-income households typically prefer to own than rent).

8. Calgary has much less rental housing than Edmonton, and this gap has grown since the mid-1990s. Beginning in the early 1990s, the number of rental housing units (per capita) in both Edmonton and Calgary started to drop each year; and it dropped more sharply in Calgary than in Edmonton. Today, Calgary has approximately half the number of rental units as Edmonton on a per-capita basis.

9. The many public policy factors raised above helped create the ‘perfect storm’ for a very sharp rise in homelessness in Calgary beginning in the mid-1990s. From the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s, homelessness in Calgary saw very rapid growth. For example, according to analysis done with Point-in-Time Count methodology, it grew by almost 700% (per capita) during that time. And while it’s always hard for researchers to establish causation (see point #2 of this blog post) it can reasonably be inferred that the public policy changes discussed above played a major role in this increase.

10. In 2008, Calgary became the first Canadian city to develop a plan to ‘end homelessness’; since that time, homelessness in Calgary has decreased. There are three main reasons for that decrease. First, since 2008, a great deal of progress has been made at the community level in Calgary (I’ve previously discussed the very important role played by the Calgary Homeless Foundation as System Planner here). Second, benefit levels for Alberta social assistance recipients have increased since 2008. For example, total annual income received by a ‘single employable’ household receiving social assistance jumped by more than 30% in 2009; and total annual income for a single adult receiving Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped increased by 30% between 2011 and 2013. Third, Calgary’s rental vacancy rate is very high right now (an indirect result of the drop in the price of oil).

In Sum: The intended ‘take away’ from the presentation is that, homelessness is a complex issue that requires a coordinated and collective response that addresses the local issues through local responses. When it comes to ending homelessness, a community plan that is focused on increasing coordination and collaboration across a system of care and greater integration with big system public service providers is vital. For agencies at the frontline, having a System Planner, such as the Calgary Homeless Foundation, providing the big picture view and coordination matters a great deal… and so too does public policy.

I wish to thank: Rachel Campbell, Louise Gallagher, Ron Kneebone, Kara Layher, Lindsay Lenny, Chidom Otogwu, Steve Pomeroy, Joel Sinclair, John Stapleton, Greg Suttor, Alina Turner and Donna Wood for assistance with this. Any errors are mine.

[1] This is not to suggest that rent regulation doesn’t play an important role in regulating landlord-tenant relations. For more on this, see this recent analysis.

[2] Both figures in this paragraph are expressed in 2015 constant dollars.

For a PDF version of the present blog post, please click here: Public Policy and Homelessness,The Case of Calgary

Ten Things to Know About Homelessness in Canada

by admin | Sep 15, 2015 | Aboriginal Peoples, Alberta, Canada, Cities, Demographics, Employment, Employment Insurance, Fiscal policy, Homeless, Housing, Income, Income Support, Indigenous peoples, Labour Market, Macroeconomics, municipalities, Nunavut, Ontario, population aging, Poverty, seniors, Social Policy, taxation, Toronto, Unemployment

Ten Things to Know About Homelessness in Canada

This afternoon I gave a presentation at Raising the Roof’s Child & Family Homelessness Stakeholder Summit in Toronto. My slide deck can be downloaded here. To accompany the presentation, I’ve prepared the following list of Ten Things to Know About Homelessness in Canada.

1.Efforts to enumerate persons experiencing homeless have generally been spotty, but it is reasonable to assert that homelessness in Canada saw substantial growth in the 1980s and 1990s. On a nightly basis in Toronto, there were about 1,000 persons per night staying in emergency shelters in 1980. By 1990, that figure had doubled. And ten years later, there were 4,000 persons per night staying in Toronto’s emergency shelters. The Toronto figure of 4,000 per night has remained relatively constant for the past 15 years, though it has edged up in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 recession a phenomenon which I’ve previously written about here. (Admittedly, the number of persons living in emergency shelters on a nightly basis is a rather narrow gauge of homelessness. According to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, approximately 13% of Canadian households are in core housing need; for Nunavut, the figure is a whopping 39%.)

2. Though it’s difficult to establish causation, I think relatively safe assumptions can be made about some of the major contributors to homelessness. Researchers are generally careful about using the term causation in fact, there are long-standing tensions among academic disciplines as to what methodological approaches are required to establish it. Statisticians, for example, generally believe that randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are needed to establish causation; but as David Freedman has argued, RCTs are often impractical or unethical (Freedman, 1999, p. 255). Rather, careful researchers are more likely to say things like these factors have likely contributed to this effect,” or “I think it’s likely that this effect caused this to happen And with that in mind, I’d like to suggest that there are probably three major factors that have contributed to homelessness in Canada: 1) macroeconomic factors (especially unemployment); 2) changes to our social welfare system (including a decrease in the availability of government-subsidized housing); and 3) the design and administration of policies whose specific intent is to respond directly to homelessness (often referred to as ‘systems responses’ to homelessness).

3. Homelessness has profound ramifications on the lives of children. As I wrote in 2012: Two studies have been done in Toronto looking at the role of housing with respect to children in care. Results of both studies indicate that the state of the family housing was a factor in one in five cases in which a child was temporarily admitted into care. Results from the Toronto research also indicate that, in one in 10 cases, housing status delayed the return home of a child from care (Falvo, 2012, p. 14). Other research estimates that, on an annual basis in Toronto alone, approximately 300 babies are born to mothers who are homeless. (Of course, homelessness can have profound ramifications on the lives of adults as well. For more on this, see this 2007 study.)

4. The role of Canada’s federal government in funding both housing for low-income persons and programming for homeless persons has varied considerably over time. Provinces and territories spend much more of their own money on housing for low-income persons when the federal government leads. Thus, a considerable amount of subsidized housing for low-income Canadians was built from the mid-1960s through to the early 1990s. Since the early 1990s, comparatively little subsidized housing has been built for low-income persons in Canada. I should also note that the annual, inflation-adjusted value of federal funding for homelessness today is worth just 35% of what it was worth in 1999.

5. Not every province/territory responds to homelessness in the same way. While much mores subsidized housing for low-income persons gets built when the federal government leads, provinces and territories don’t always respond to federal funding initiatives in the same way. For example, between 2002 and 2013, three times as many subsidized housing units were built in Alberta (on a per capita basis) than in Ontario. I would argue that a driving force behind this differential stems from Alberta’s strong economic performance during this same period relative to that of Ontario’s.

6. Though a careful researcher will be cautious in discussing what causes homelessness, I think we know a lot about what solves it. In many cases, a person who stays in an emergency shelter will exit homelessness without substantial public resources. In some cases, they might find housing on their own; in other cases, family and friends may provide them with short term assistance e.g. some financial support, a couch to sleep on, etc. (To learn more about lengths of stay in homeless shelters in a sample of Canadian cities, see this 2013 study.) Researchers and advocates for the homeless generally don’t view such short-term stays as a major public policy challenge the bigger challenge is in the case of persons who stay in emergency shelters (and outside) for longer periods of time. Even here though, I would argue that it’s hardly a mystery as to what constitutes an effective policy response.

Indeed, as early as the mid-1980s, small non-profit organizations in Ontario (and possibly in other provinces as well) found success in building subsidized housing for persons who had experienced long-term homelessness they did so by providing professional staff support to help such tenants live independently in those units. This was (and still is) known as supportive housing. The emergence of supportive housing in Ontario happened in large part due to strong advocacy by community-based groups. This included: the Singles Displaced Persons Project; the consumer/survivor movement; the slogan homes not hostels the founding of Houselink Community Homes; and the founding of Homes First Society. Conditions of eligibility for such housing varied from one provider to the next. In many cases, the tenant did not have to prove housing readiness before being offered a unit. In fact, Homes First Society got its name because its founders believed that its tenants needed homes first before addressing other challenges (i.e. mental health, substance use, employment, etc.).

Today, researchers, practitioners and advocates refer to this approach ashousing first. And very recently, a successful RCT of housing first was conducted in five Canadian cities; I’ve previously written about that study here.

7. There are several ways of making housing available to low-income households; all of them involve the private sector to varying degrees. Sometimes when government subsidizes housing for low-income persons, it provides money to a non-profit entity that develops, owns and operates the units. Other times, government provides a subsidy to landlords (either for-profit or non-profit); in exchange for the subsidy, the landlord agree to rent units at a reduced rate for a specified period of time (e.g. in some cases, for 10 years). And other times, government provides money (often known as a housing allowance) to low-income tenants who then rent a unit from a for-profit landlord. Of the three possible approaches, I personally have a preference for the option where a non-profit entity develops, owns and operates the units (and I have previously written about this here). Having said that, I think there’s a place for all three approaches, depending on local context.

8. Some jurisdictions have used sophisticated information management systems as part of their efforts to respond to homelessness. Many organizations serving homeless persons in Calgary enter client information into a database called the Homelessness Management Information System, a system that is also used in many American cities. Client-level information (such as age, health status, employment status and housing status) is entered into the database when an initial intake is done. While the client is receiving services, updated information is entered again; in the case of some programs, follow-up assessments are done every three months. In the case of some program types, there are both exit and post-exit follow-up assessments completed. All information-gathering is subject to provincial privacy legislation. There are many uses for the data once it’s gathered. For example, some organizations use the data to provide case management services to clients. Also, funders are able to assess each organization’s performance against benchmarks (i.e. percentage of clients who receive housing after a specific period of time).

9. When it comes to both preventing and responding to homelessness, the capacity of government to generate revenue matters a great deal.Governments typically use revenue generated from taxation to finance both subsidized housing and other important social programs. When tax revenue decreases, many governments have less ability to spend on such programs. Since the mid-1990s, tax revenue in Canada (measured as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product) has decreased substantially. If this trend doesn’t reverse itself soon, it will be very challenging for many governments (especially provincial, territorial and municipal governments) to invest in important social programs. There is currently a move afoot by some Canadians to increase taxes; it is led by Alex Himelfarb, former Clerk of the Privy Council. Alex and his son Jordan recently co-edited a book that calls for the need for higher taxation in Canada. (Note: according to some schools of thought, it isn’t necessary for a sovereign government with its own currency to tax more in order to finance more social spending. While keeping in mind that such an approach would be most relevant to Canada’s federal government and much less relevant to provincial, territorial and municipal governments readers can read more about one such school of thought here.)

10. Over the course of the next decade, Canada will likely see substantial increases in homelessness among both seniors and Indigenous peoples (First Nation, Metis and Inuit). Seniors and Indigenous peoples are growing as a percentage of Canada’s total population. Further, the percentage of seniors living below Statistics Canada’s Low-Income Measure has grown substantially since the mid-1990s. I think all of this makes it likely that both of these groups will begin to grow as a percentage of Canada’s homeless populations.

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The following individuals were very helpful in helping me prepare the present blog post: Maroine Bendaoud, Lisa Burke, George Fallis, Greg Suttor, Francesco Falvo, Louise Gallagher, Ali Jadidzadeh, Lisa Ker, Jennifer Legate, Kevin McNichol, Richard Shillington, Blake Thomas and Mike Veall. Any errors are mine.

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