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

 

Ten Things to Know About Social Assistance in Canada

Ten Things to Know About Social Assistance in Canada

by | 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:

  1. 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]
  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.
  3. 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.)
  4. 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)
  5. 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).
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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 (R2 = – 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.

 

Ten things to know about Canadian attempts to count homelessness through Point-in-Time Counts

Ten things to know about Canadian attempts to count homelessness through Point-in-Time Counts

by | Nov 30, 2016 | Pit Count, Point in time Count, Stats Canada

Ten things to know about Canadian attempts to count homelessness through Point-in-Time Counts

Alberta’s seven largest municipalities recently released early results of a provincially-coordinated effort to enumerate and survey persons experiencing homelessness. Most of these communities reported reductions in homelessness, and reported a 19% reduction in province-wide homelessness compared to the first provincially-coordinated count conducted in 2014. The stated purpose of a Point-in-Time Count (PIT Count) is to provide a current snapshot of the demographics and number of people experiencing homelessness within a specific timeframe. Across Canada, these types of exercises have been going on for years—but they’re not always what they seem. Here are 10 things to know.
  1. Local officials already keep basic information about persons sleeping in emergency shelters and other provisional housing; but they typically have very little information about persons sleeping outside. Across Canada, most urban centres keep administrative data on persons experiencing homelessness. Indeed, local officials (often municipal government staff) keep tabs on how many people are sleeping in their emergency shelters; officials also typically know some demographic information about those persons. From time to time, communities also conduct Point in Time (PIT) Counts (i.e. ‘PIT Counts’) which seek not only to survey and count persons sleeping in emergency shelters, but also to survey and count persons sleeping outside. The recently-conducted 7 Cities PIT Count in Alberta PIT gathered data and survey information from emergency shelters, short-term and interim housing, corrections facilities, and persons outside.
  2. For more than a decade, there have been communities in Canada conducting counts of homelessness in their community (i.e. ‘PIT Counts’). Each community has used its own methodological approach, and that methodological approach often changes from year to year, all of which can impact or skew a count. According to a guide prepared by Employment and Social Development Canada: “Differences include the time of year the count is conducted, the time of day the count happens, the people that are included as ‘homeless,’ and the questions that are asked in the survey.” Other factors that can skew the result of a count include weather conditions on the night of the count and changes in the locations within a city where people experiencing homelessness are known to sleep without interference from law enforcement. Unlike data on people experiencing homelessness kept on a day-to-day basis by social workers and other front-line professionals (which I’ve previously blogged about here), data gathered through PIT Counts typically include a strong focus on rough sleepers (i.e. persons sleeping outside on the night of the count).
  3. In 2016, there was a national effort to coordinate PIT Counts across Canada. During this effort, 31 communities participated, spanning seven provinces and one territory. Each of these communities did their counts between January 1 and April 30. For many communities, this was the first time they’d done a PIT Count. Everyone used the same group of core questions. Training workshops were held in November 2015 and in early 2016. A module was created by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), and the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness created a toolkit. The report with findings from the 2016 national effort will likely be released by ESDC in the near future.
  4. Canada’s most populous cities chose not to participate in the 2016 nationally-coordinated effort. One reason some cities chose not to participate in the nationally-coordinated effort was that the time of year chosen was not ideal for them. It’s hard for some communities to find volunteers when it’s cold outside. And although communities counting as late as April were ultimately included in the national effort, the original time frame chosen by the federal government was in the dead of winter. Another reason many cities chose not to participate is that counting homeless persons when it’s extremely cold outside runs the risk of under-counting rough sleepers. Finally, some cities had done their previous count just a short period earlier, so an early-2016 count would not have been practical. Cities choosing not to participate in the nationally-coordinated effort include: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Winnipeg. (As mentioned above, however, at the provincial level Alberta’s seven major cities did participate in Canada’s first provincially-coordinated PIT Count in October of 2014 with a commitment to count again in October of 2016.)
  5. PIT Counts combine research and advocacy—and that can be messy. Researchers and policy-makers find it helpful to have accurate data about homeless populations. However, local officials wanting to demonstrate progress in “ending homelessness” sometimes see the results of PIT Counts as ‘progress reports.’ This can create a tension between those wanting accuracy, on the one hand, with those wanting to present an ongoing picture of progress to all stakeholders. Some local officials responsible for undertaking PIT Counts are therefore in a conflict of interest situation. (Remember: local communities decide what kind of methodology to use and how to change their methodology from one year to the next. Communities intent on demonstrating progress in “ending homelessness” may find it tempting to adjust methodologies to create opportunities to present a lower ‘final number’ than previously announced…)
  6. Officials in some communities may (quietly) hope they end up with a smaller ‘count size;’ officials in other communities may (quietly) hope to end up with a larger ‘count size.’ Admittedly, not every community takes the same approach to advocacy. While many want to ‘show progress’ by ending up with a smaller number of individuals enumerated, others may want to end up with a larger number (in order to show funders that further resources are needed in order to end homelessness). This may depend on whether local officials choose a ‘glass half full’ approach to advocacy or a ‘glass half empty’ approach. (I discuss both of these approaches in this previous blog post.)
  7. One challenge with PIT Counts is the need to balance methodological consistency and rigour, on the one hand, with community flexibility and need, on the other. As I’ll discuss in point #9 below, Statistics Canada could potentially be resourced to assist with future PIT Counts; this might result in more methodological consistency across years and across jurisdictions. However, many Canadian cities have an established methodology that works for their community that has been developed over many years. This allows for year over year comparisons within the community but limited comparisons across jurisdictions. As well, these communities often have a very well-organized network of volunteers who support their endeavours and use the PIT Count as an opportunity to raise awareness of homelessness in the community through media engagement and opportunities to involve political leadership in the count.
  8. I think an unresolved methodological question with PIT Counts is whether the outdoor (i.e. rough sleeper) component of a community’s PIT Count results should be interpreted as being representative of that community’s outdoor homeless population.In other words, if 20% of homeless persons enumerated outside in Toronto’s PIT Count are over the age of 65, is it reasonable to infer from this that 20% of Toronto’s actual outdoor homeless population is also over the age of 65? I think most people who read results of PIT Counts have a tendency to assume that the results for most cities are representative; but careful researchers will acknowledge that this may not always be the case. I think the more confident enumerators are that most regions of their city with rough sleepers have been covered in a PIT Count, the more reasonable it is to infer that that city’s PIT Count results are indeed representative of that city’s actual homeless population.
  9. The federal government could add methodological rigour to PIT Counts by asking Statistics Canada to assist with a federally-coordinated PIT Count effort. Indeed, ESDC could fund Statistics Canada to develop a methodology and train volunteers to conduct a survey that would seek to be representative of each community’s homeless population. Under this scenario, volunteers trained by Statistics Canada officials would conduct face-to-face interviews with persons experiencing homelessness. This survey could be done yearly and, once complete, an aggregation of the data collected could be made available at the CANSIM web site. A key advantage of Statistics Canada being involved is that survey design and administration is their area of expertise. Under this approach, there would be one common methodology used to collect data across Canada (rather than several dozen, as is currently the case) and this would allow for comparisons across jurisdictions and across time. This could also help address the potential conflict of interest situation discussed in point #5 above—indeed, Statistics Canada officials would ensure (if not require) methodological consistency across communities.
  10. There are several advantages to the status quo approach. In addition to the advantages mentioned in point #7 above (pertaining to volunteer recruitment), another advantage of the status quo approach is community control. Indeed, under the existing system (whereby each community conducts its own count) if local organizers want to add new questions or rephrase existing ones, they can do so at their own discretion.
Going forward. In 2018, the federal government will once again attempt a nationally-coordinated PiT Count. Participating communities will be asked to conduct their counts in either March or April that year. Each participating community will also receive funding from ESDC to use toward the effort. More information on the “second Canadian coordinated homeless count” can be found here. To download a PDF version of this document click HERE. ______________________________________________________

The following persons provided invaluable assistance in the preparation of this blog post: Robbie Brydon, Rachel Campbell, Wally Czech, Jesse Donaldson, Louise Gallagher, Darcy Halber, Patrick Hunter, Nicole Jackson, Ali Jadidzadeh, Lindsay Lenny, Kevin McNichol, Adam Melnyk, Tim Richter, John Rowland and Munir Sheikh. The views expressed in this blog post are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the Calgary Homeless Foundation. Any errors lie with the author.