Emergency facilities
La version française de ce billet se trouve ici.
I’m writing an open access e-book on homelessness and have just released Chapter 4 titled “Emergency facilities.” The PDF version of the full chapter is available here
Ten things to know:
1. In principle, emergency facilities—sometimes known as shelters or hostels—serve important functions. In theory, persons without safe housing can quickly gain entry to them, ideally for a short time, until they can leave the facility for housing. Such facilities can keep vulnerable persons alive, and relatively safe, until more appropriate accommodation is available.
2. The types of services offered at emergency facilities vary enormously, even within the same community. At a very basic level, these may consist of: a mat, bed or area of a floor to sleep on; a blanket and sometimes a pillow; washrooms, laundry and shower facilities; the storage of belongings; food; telephones; staff assistance in the resolution of conflict among residents; and a postal address to receive mail.
3. The quality of emergency facilities varies considerably. Some large communities in high-income countries have many large facilities with considerable sophistication. But many communities—especially in rural areas—have much more basic facilities. Unfortunately, some communities have no emergency accommodation at all.
4. Emergency facilities are usually not purpose-built. Due to cost constraints, the buildings used as these facilities were typically designed for other purposes. Previous uses include office buildings, warehouses, restaurants, factories, schools, church basements, garages and prisons. Having said that, some are purpose-built.
5. Staff in emergency facilities do important work, but they’re usually not well-paid. The most basic roles performed by staff at emergency facilities include intakes, conflict de-escalation/security, cleaning and food preparation. Persons working in emergency facilities are typically offered low pay and few if any benefits—but some facilities, especially government-run facilities, offer better remuneration in accordance with public sector union standards.
6. Patterns of stay by residents vary enormously. Such patterns are determined in part by each individual’s personal circumstances, rules at the facility, services offered at the facility and the availability of affordable (and appropriate) housing. Researchers often group such stays into three categories: transitional (meaning the person’s homelessness tends to self-resolve after just a few days or months); episodic (meaning the person cycles in and out of emergency facilities in a rather unstable manner); and chronic (meaning the person stays in the emergency facility for many months and even years at a time).
7. Privacy in any real sense is virtually non-existent in most emergency facilities. Residents sometimes sleep as little as one foot away from strangers. In such situations, information privacy is hard to preserve, as is privacy in a physical sense (e.g., having to change one’s clothing in front of strangers, coping with a bathroom emergency in front of other persons).
8. Housing support matters. At the Calgary Drop-In, new residents are assigned a housing worker immediately upon access, and a housing plan is put in place within a day. Staff then take residents to view units. Funding is provided by the shelter to assist prospective tenants with first month’s rent, damage deposit, moving and other needs. All shelter residents who receive assistance with housing have access to at least three months of case management (i.e., social work) support. (Note: most emergency facilities do not provide this degree of housing assistance.)
9. Many emergency facilities provide 24/7 access. There are several advantages to keeping emergency facilities open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Doing so can increase safety for residents. It can also encourage residents to access services provided inside the facility. Further, it allows people to catch up on sleep during the day. Finally, it can promote community acceptance (by reducing visible homelessness during the day and likely discouraging rough sleeping).
10. Funding and regulatory leadership from government can make a difference. Ideally, all orders of government should work collaboratively both with each other and with non-profit organizations delivering services. They should encourage promising practices while both respecting local context (e.g., unique needs and constraints of some communities) and offering the operators of emergency facilities room to innovate.
In sum. This is a summary of Chapter 4 of a sole-authored, open access interdisciplinary textbook intended to provide an introduction to homelessness for students, service providers, researchers, policy-makers and advocates. All material for this book is available free of charge here. Newly-completed chapters will be uploaded throughout the year.
I wish to thank Sylvia Regnier and Alex Tétreault for assistance with this blog post. I also wish to thank Homes First Society for use of the photo that appears above.
