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.

Ten things to know about Canada’s newly-unveiled National Housing Strategy

Ten things to know about Canada’s newly-unveiled National Housing Strategy

by | Nov 30, 2017 | Federal Budget, Government, Government Funding, Housing

Ten things to know about Canada’s newly-unveiled National Housing Strategy

On November 22, the Trudeau government unveiled its much-anticipated National Housing Strategy. While much of the Strategy’s content and funding levels had already been broadly outlined in the most recent federal budget, the Strategy provides further detail on the content of a renewed federal role in affordable housing.

Here are 10 things to know:

  1. The Strategy aims to reduce chronic homelessness by 50% over 10 years. According to the federal government’s Homelessness Partnering Strategy Directives: “Chronically homeless refers to individuals, often with disabling conditions (e.g. chronic physical or mental illness, substance abuse problems), who are currently homeless and have been homeless for six months or more in the past year (i.e., have spent more than 180 cumulative nights in a shelter or place not fit for human habitation).” Setting targets is certainly a positive, however, in the absence of a clearly defined implementation framework it’s very challenging for researchers to accurately assess how realistic this target is vis-à-vis various spending commitments.
  2. A key feature of the Strategy is the announcement of the government’s intent to create a Canada Housing Benefit. This benefit will consist of financial assistance[1] to help low-income households afford the rent in both private and social housing units. The Trudeau government estimates that this will cost $4 billion over eight years beginning in 2020, and that the average beneficiary will receive $2,500 in support per year. It is expected that half of this money will come from the federal government, and the other half from provinces and territories. Certain subgroups will be prioritized—however, it’s not clear which subgroups of households will be targeted. This benefit program will be designed by 2020, in partnership with provinces and territories.  It’s therefore unclear how this new benefit program will interact with the rest of Canada’s income assistance framework. For example, will a social assistance recipient who receives this new benefit be allowed to keep the full value of both the new benefit and their existing social assistance benefits? What about a household that’s already receiving a provincially-administered rent supplement? And what will this look like on reserve?
  3. A new National Housing Co-Investment Fund will create up to 60,000 units of new housing and repair up to 240,000 units of existing housing. Over 10 years, this federally-managed initiative will be worth $15.9 billion (including $4.7 billion in capital grants and $11.2B in low-interest loans from CMHC). About half of the grant funding will fund repair, while the other half will fund new builds. This will assist both with social housing and housing that’s owned and operated by for-profit landlords. This large fund will consist of several programs that target different groups; it will include grants and loans. The federal government anticipates 6,000 new housing units annually will be created, in addition to repairs. At least 7,000 shelter spaces will be created or repaired for survivors of family violence. There will also be 12,000 new units created for seniors. At least 2,400 new units for persons with developmental disabilities will be created. This is a unilateral federal program; dollar-for-dollar cost-sharing will not be required from provincial and territorial governments (however, some assistance from provincial and territorial governments may be required). Among other things, this is a demonstration of the Trudeau government’s interest in getting back into the direct delivery of housing programs. Quebec has already said that it does not want direct federal involvement in the housing sector and expects to negotiate an arrangement whereby the government of Quebec will remain solely responsible for the development of its housing sector.
  4. The Canada Community Housing Initiative will focus on preserving existing units of social housing. This will entail $4.3 billion of federal funding over a decade and will require cost-matching from provinces and territories. Note that this is precisely the amount of federal funding set to expire over the next decade on existing social housing units (ergo: this is about expiring operating agreements). Canada’s approximately 500,000 social housing units that are both administered by either provincial or territorial authorities, and have rent-geared-to-income (RGI) subsidies, are eligible for this. This fund will assist with repairs, help keep rents affordable and provide mortgage assistance for the operators. This means the issue of ‘expiring operating agreements’ is fixed for the next 10 years…provided the provinces and territories agree to cost-match. (The Federal Community Housing Initiative will do essentially the same thing for social housing units that are federally-administered; this will include co-op units. This will entail $500 million in federal funding over 10 years. No cost matching will be required here.)[2]
  5. The Trudeau government appears to want to shift traditional ‘social housing’ models toward mixed-income developments. Developments that are 100% RGI will be discouraged; likewise, current 100% RGI will be encouraged to be redeveloped with income mix.[3] This will be done through the National Housing Co-Investment Fund and through the Canada Community Housing Initiative (both of which are discussed above).
  6. An assortment of additional new initiatives were announced. A new Federal Housing Advocate will be created. A new National Housing Council will be created, it will be an advisory body that will provide ongoing input to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). It will begin its work in 2018. A new Community Based-Tenant Initiative will be created; it will foster participation by people with lived experience. A new public engagement campaign (with an anti-stigma focus) will be created.
  7. The Strategy discusses a National Housing Strategy Research Agenda. Worth $241 million over 10 years, the Strategy says this Agenda will embrace open data. Some of this funding will go to Statistics Canada; some will go to CMHC. According to the Strategy, the Trudeau government wants to increase funding for housing research “both inside and outside government and enhance the channels available to communicate research results.” Also according to the Strategy: “Solution Labs will be funded to bring experts and a range of housing stakeholders together to rapidly incubate and scale potential solutions to housing affordability pressures. Through open competitive processes, teams from the housing sector will be invited to identify housing challenges in key National Housing Strategy priority areas and propose strategies to develop new, world-leading solutions.”[4]
  8. The Strategy refers to this as “Canada’s first ever National Housing Strategy,” but that may not be accurate. In in the mid-1980s, Canada’s federal government released a document titled A National Direction for Housing Solutions, which many housing policy experts considered to be a form of a strategy. This had a transformative impact on affordable housing policy in Canada—specifically, it got the provinces and territories more engaged in affordable housing (that document can be accessed online, free of charge, at this link). Also, while the new Strategy contains some language pertaining to home ownership, the Strategy is very heavily focused on the rental sector.[5]
  9. The Strategy may overstate a few points. As indicated above, the Trudeau government may be stretching things when it says this is Canada’s “first ever” National Housing Strategy. Likewise, the Strategy vows to create four times as many housing units annually as were created from 2005 to 2015. However, according to Greg Suttor’s new book about the history of Canadian social housing policy, approximately 7,900 affordable rental housing units (not counting on reserve housing) were created annually during the 2005-2013 period.[6] Since the Strategy claims it will create 100,000 new units over 10 years, it would be more accurate to say that it will result in a modest increase in new builds annually (indeed, it’s quite unlikely that there will even be a doubling of annual new builds under the Strategy). Further, CMHC has not published good data on numbers of new units created annually over the past several decades, so this makes it challenging for researchers to ‘fact check’ any such claim with any level of precision.
  10. There will be lots to monitor over the next several years, and there are many unresolved questions. For example, beginning in 2020, there will be reports to Parliament every three years on housing targets and outcomes. But who will do that reporting, who will set the metrics for the reporting and who will calculate the figures? Also, the federal government says it’s working with First Nations, Métis and Inuit organizations to develop separate housing plans, but what will they look like and will they involve new funding? The Strategy vows to take a “rights-based approach to housing” and this will require new legislation; but it’s not clear what such an approach actually means. Finally, what happens if some provinces or territories refuse to ‘cost match’ some of the initiatives?

In Sum. This Strategy’s unveiling is arguably the most positive development in federal housing policy since the early 1970s. It signals that the Trudeau government is serious about federal housing policy. But while the government’s intent is clear, we’ll now see how well they can actually deliver.

I wish to thank Tim Aubry, Victoria Ballance, Janice Chan, George Fallis, Martina Jileckova, Marc Lee, Lindsay Lenny, David Macdonald, Michael Mendelson, Jeff Morrison, Geoffrey Nelson, Chidom Otogwu, Steve Pomeroy, Tim Richter, Joel Sinclair, Marion Steele, Greg Suttor, John Sylvestre and one anonymous reviewer for invaluable assistance with this blog post. Any errors are mine.

 

[1] For more on what such a benefit structure might look like, see this March 2016 report by Michael Mendelson.

[2] This funding for expiring operating agreements (i.e. the $4.3 billion + $500 million) was the only ‘new money’ announced in the Strategy. Though the 2017 federal budget had announced the intent to reinstate funding for expiring operating agreements, the actual amount was not spelled out. It will now take a supplemental vote in Parliament to formalize this additional funding.

[3] Adam Vaughan (a Toronto Member of Parliament) is believed to be the chief architect of this piece of the Strategy.

[4] Both of the quotes used in this paragraph are taken from p. 21 of the Strategy.

[5] Thus, it would probably be more accurate to call this an ‘affordable housing strategy’ than a ‘comprehensive housing strategy.’

[6] Dr. Suttor had to impute this figure, based on multiple sources. He presents the results in Table 8.5

 

You can view a PDF version of this blog post here: Ten things to know about Canada’s newly-unveiled National Housing Strategy

 

Ten Things to Know About Social Assistance in Alberta

Ten Things to Know About Social Assistance in Alberta

by | 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:

  1. 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.)
  2. 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.
  3. 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]
  4. 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).
  5. 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.)
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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).

Second Annual Canadian Homelessness Data Sharing Initiative

Second Annual Canadian Homelessness Data Sharing Initiative

by | Jul 4, 2017 | Data Sharing, Ending Homelessness, Government, Housing, Pit Count, Poverty Reduction, Research and Data, Ron Kneebone

Second Annual Canadian Homelessness Data Sharing Initiative

On May 18, 2017, the Second Annual Canadian Homelessness Data Sharing Initiative took place in Calgary (all slide presentations, as well as photos from the event, are available here). The event was organized by the Calgary Homeless Foundation and the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, and the participants included:  people who build datasets (about persons experiencing homelessness); researchers who use that data; persons with lived experience; and public servants.

Here are 10 things to know about this year’s event:

1. For the second year in a row, there was strong representation from Canada’s federal government. Five officials from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) participated, three of whom had formal speaking roles at the event. Aaron Segaert (from ESDC) presented data from more than 200 homeless shelters between 2005 and 2014, showing that:

  • the occupancy rate (i.e. % of beds filled each night) across these shelters rose from 83% in 2010 to 92% in 2014;
  • the average ‘duration of stay’ by households using these shelters is increasing, especially for families and seniors;
  • the number of seniors using homeless shelters annually nearly doubled across Canada between 2005 and 2014.

2. This year’s event had strong Quebec representation. Research presented by Annie Duchesne, for example, finds that certain subgroups of persons in Montreal’s largest homeless shelter are more likely to experience chronic homelessness (i.e. long-term homelessness) than others—those subgroups include persons over the age of 50, persons with mental health problems and persons with disabilities.

3. Indigenous perspectives were presented. Bonnie Healy’s presentation focused on the work of the Alberta First Nations Information Governance Centre. Topics raised in her presentation included First Nations OCAP principles, a publication titled First Nations – Health Trends Alberta, the First Nations health status report for the Alberta region, the work of the Alberta First Nations Governance Centre, and Indigenous logic models.

4. Several data-sharing advocates actively participated in this year’s event. Michael Lenczner, a data-sharing champion in Canada’s social sector, attended and spoke at this year’s event. He stated that, in terms of data sharing, he’s not aware of any other subsector of Canada’s non-profit sector that has an annual forum to discuss the importance of data. He also cited Alberta as a leader in data sharing, making reference mostly to PolicyWise, who’ve worked with government to link client administrative data from multiple ministries. They’re the leaders of this kind of data-linking in Canada, and possibly the world.

5. Difficulties with researchers accessing federal homelessness data were raised. Tracey Lauriault is a Carleton University professor who described her past difficulties in trying to access HIFIS data for research. When she did, she was told that her data requests must be sent to community coordinators; yet, federal officials were never able to provide her with a list of community coordinators.

6. One of the event highlights was a panel discussion on moving towards increased national integration of Homelessness Management Information Systems (HMIS). As I’ve written before, there are multiple software systems across Canada that keep data on persons experiencing homelessness; many people would like to see increased integration of these systems (possibly into one very large system, or at least the sharing of data among these systems so that researchers can have larger samples for their work). Henry Dagher (ESDC) discussed the evolution of the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS) software system (which is one type of HMIS system). This federally-administered HIFIS system is now operating in more than 100 communities. HIFIS 4 is now web-based and gaining strong momentum; BC Housing is now implementing HIFIS province-wide (spanning approximately 200 service providers). Several panel members suggest that community members need to gain more control of HIFIS (via a stakeholder advisory body with some clout that includes persons with lived experience). As Michael Lenczner puts it: “The tail shouldn’t wag the dog.” Jenn Legate (Calgary Homeless Foundation) raised several operational concerns that need to be kept in mind as we move forward on increased national integration of HIMIS systems—namely, the ongoing costs a server, the cost of migrating data from an old database system to a new system, challenges pertaining to customer service provided by software vendors, and legal barriers to data sharing.

7. Important findings were presented from Canada’s recent nationally-coordinated Point in Time Count of homeless persons. Patrick Hunter’s presentation noted that more than 25% of homeless persons enumerated during the 2016 count did not use an emergency shelter during the previous year—I think this speaks in part to conditions in emergency shelters, about which there’s virtually no research.[1] Hunter also reported that Indigenous peoples are nine times more likely to experience homelessness than the rest of Canada’s population; what’s more, more likely to experience longer homeless spells than non-Indigenous people.

8. One of the event highlights was a “review of the day” by Stephen Metraux. Metraux, the Director of the Health Policy Program at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, gave a ‘wrap up’ presentation that included a short slide presentation. He subsequently wrote a blog post in which he reflected on his experience at the event.

9. Several suggestions were made about a ‘way forward.’ Topics that need to be tackled in the future include:

10. This will continue to be an annual event that we expect to be held each year in (or near) Calgary. It may also evolve into a two-day format, with one day focusing on the operational aspects associated with building, maintaining and improving HMIS systems. All of these operational matters are the focus of this biannual event in the United States; yet, no Canadian equivalent currently exists.

In Sum. We hope this annual event will help communities across Canada get closer to ending homelessness. The event web page—with slide presentations and minutes from the event—can be found here.

A blog post written about the First Annual Canadian Homelessness Data Sharing Initiative can be found here.

The author wishes to thank the following individuals for invaluable assistance with this blog post: Vicki Ballance, Ron Kneebone, Eric Latimer, Tracey Lauriault, Kara Layher, Michael Lenczner, Lindsay Lenny, Stephen Metraux and one anonymous source. Any errors lie with the author.

 

[1] This 2016 report on conditions inside Out of the Cold facilities and Warming Centres is worth reading. However, it should be noted that the facilities that are the focus of this report are not “homeless shelters” as defined by City of Toronto officials; rather, they operate separately from the formal shelter system.

 

You can view a PDF version of this blog post here: Second Annual Canadian Homelessness Data Sharing Initiative