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Homelessness is a global challenge.

The United Nations Human Settlements Program estimates that 1.1 billion people live in inadequate housing, and the best data available suggest that more than 100 million people have no housing at all.

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Shelter Capacity Report 2018

Employment and Social Development Canada

The Shelter Capacity Report is a descriptive account of capacity statistics for emergency homeless shelters in Canada. The number of emergency shelter facilities and the number of permanent beds are reported for each province and territory, as well as by community. In addition, brief overviews of Transitional Housing facilities and Violence Against Women shelters are provided in the appendices. This report is provided...

Child Abuse, Street Victimization, and Substance Use Among Homeless Young Adults

Kimberly A. Tyler

Lisa A. Melander

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between child sexual and physical abuse, street victimization, and partner violence with substance use among 172 homeless young adults. Path analysis results revealed that males and those who reported parental drug problems were significantly more likely to have higher rates of substance use. Those who suffered more childhood physical and sexual abuse and those who...

Solving Homelessness from a Complex Systems Perspective: Insights for Prevention Responses

Coordinated responses leverage flexible networks to deliver a range of services tailored to complex needs. However, policies that prioritize services on the basis of vulnerability may miss opportunities for prevention, thus contributing to overwhelming pressure on the service system. To achieve broad and sustainable reductions in housing insecurity, homelessness prevention must be fully integrated into existing service...

Preventing Youth Homelessness

In the context of a global shift towards prevention, this international review identifies evidence-based interventions, promising practices, youth-identified prevention priorities, and intersecting policy elements contributing to the prevention of youth homelessness. The report draws upon a careful assessment of this evidence base to develop a set of recommendations to effectively divert young people from experiences of...

Pathways for Refugees’ Descent into Homelessness in Edmonton, Alberta: The Urgent Need for Policy and Procedural Change

David St. Arnault

Noorfarah Merali

This study investigated pathways for refugees’ descent into homelessness in Edmonton, Alberta, one of Canada’s five largest urban municipalities. Interviews with a mixed sample of 19 adult refugees from Afghanistan, Congo, Ethiopia, Iraq, Pakistan, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria who experienced homelessness after their arrival, as well as focus groups with housing support workers, identified several types of critical...

Improving Homeless Point-In-Time Counts: Uncovering the Marginally Housed

Curtis Smith

Ernesto Castañeda-Tinoco

This article discusses improvements to the methodology of the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) point-in-time (P-I-T) homeless census with an aim to capture correct numbers of people experiencing homelessness. HUD’s P-I-T results are presented to Congress as official data for policy consideration. Yet, PIT methodology focuses on visible street homeless individuals and those in shelters while neglecting the “marginally...

The 2018 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) releases the Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress (AHAR) in two parts. Part 1 provides Point-In-Time (PIT) estimates, offering a snapshot of homelessness—both sheltered and unsheltered— on a single night. The one-night counts are conducted during the last 10 days of January each year. The PIT counts also provide an estimate of the number of people experiencing...

Systems Planning to Prevent and End Homelessness: Community Progress and Priorities Across Canada

The Systems Planning Collective is led by A Way Home Canada, Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and Turner Strategies and is dedicated to helping communities and governments to prevent and end all forms of homelessness in Canada by supporting evidence-based systems planning, capacity building and technical assistance. In order to support communities in setting and reaching their goals for preventing and ending homelessness...

Homelessness in America: Focus on Chronic Homelessness Among People With Disabilities

In their Homelessness in America series, The United States Interagency on Council on Homelessness summarizes data and research about specific subpopulations to help inform the work we must do, together, to end homelessness. Here, they focus on people with disabilities who experience chronic homelessness, who make up 24% of adults experiencing homelessness and 5% of families.

Financing, Land and Organizational Capacity: Affordable Housing Development

Ayda Agha

Konrad Czechowski

Housing is a human right, enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, signed and ratified by Canada. And yet, many Canadians do not have access to housing they need at a cost they can afford. Executing affordable housing is contingent on three pillars: money to finance, land to build, and organizational capacity to action. As part of the CHRA Congress Session Series 2018, this paper...

Project Inclusion: Confronting Anti-Homeless and Anti-Substance User Stigma in British Columbia

Darcie Bennett

DJ Larkin

Project Inclusion is a comprehensive study into the ways in which specific laws and policies in policing, health care, and the court system directly undermine the health and safety of people who are homeless and living with substance use issues by trapping them in a cycle of criminalization. Pivot traveled to municipalities across British Columbia to hear directly from those affected and has gathered insight into how local...

Second Right to Housing Report: The Right to Housing in Comparative Perspective

Mercy Law Resource Centre

This report offers a comparative perspective on the right to housing through the legal systems of Finland, Scotland, France, and South Africa. The report engages with arguments in Irish political discourse over legal protection of the right to housing and offers a comparative perspective on the principled and practical concerns raised by proponents and opponents of a right to housing. The comparative analysis highlights a ...

Veterans and Homelessness

Libby Perl

This research addresses the issue of veterans in general and veterans experiencing homelessness keeping in mind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It looks at various programs created to serve veterans experiencing homelessness by Congress of which most of them are funded through the Veterans Health Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). In November 2009, the VA announced a plan to end homelessness within five...

Alone Without A Home: A national review of state laws affecting unaccompanied youth

National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty

This report reviews the status of current law in 13 key issue areas that affect the lives and future prospects of unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness in all 50 U.S. states and six territories (unless otherwise noted). The report offers an overview of the range of approaches taken by states since the last update in 2012 and the relative prevalence of these approaches, revealing significant differences from state to...

Ending Homelessness Among Older Adults and Elders Through Permanent Supportive Housing

Corporation for Supportive Housing

Older adults who are experiencing homelessness have three to four times the mortality rate of the general population due to unmet physical health, mental health, and substance use treatment needs. The combination of issues typically associated with homelessness such as mental health and substance abuse with those related to aging such as reduced mobility and a need for assistance with daily activities is requiring that elder...

Bringing it All Together: Integrating Services to Address Homelessness

Alina Turner

Diana Krecsy

This research paper from the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy outlines the benefits of integrating services to address homelessness. It discusses how Canada allocates funding towards various issues that correlate with homelessness, such as mental illness, addiction, etc. and how cost effective it would be to consolidate services and their costs. It also discusses strategies to integrate and consolidate services.

Tackling the Under Supply of Housing in England

Wendy Wilson

Cassie Barton

This briefing paper discusses the need for new housing in England and trends in housing supply, as well as barriers and solutions. Estimates have put the number of new homes needed in England at between 240,000 and 340,000 per year, accounting for new household formation and a backlog of existing need for suitable housing. In 2017/18, the total housing stock in England increased by around 222,000 homes. This was 2% higher...

Structural Prevention of Youth Homelessness

This report is one of a six-part series on youth homelessness prevention, drawing from The Roadmap for the Prevention of Youth Homelessness. The Roadmap is designed to support a paradigm shift to prevention by providing a clear definition of youth homelessness prevention, offering a framework and common language for prevention policy and practice, reviewing the evidence for prevention, and highlighting practice examples from...

Systems Work Better Together: Strengthening Public Workforce & Homeless Service Systems Collaboration

Drawing from in-depth interviews with public workforce and homeless service systems leaders and the work of our five Connections Project sites, this paper identifies common barriers to public workforce and homeless service systems collaboration and recommends how to address these barriers in order to help ensure that homeless and unstably housed jobseekers can access economic opportunity and stabilize in housing.

Forced Displacement: Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons

Famvin Homeless Alliance

Forced Displacement The briefing paper “Forced Displacement – Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons” sets out to provide a snapshot of forced displacement, its impact and current approaches to finding durable solutions for those that have had no choice but to leave their homes behind. It tries to illustrate the complexity of the issue by touching on a wide range of aspects, including the legal landscape as well as the...

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