Thirty-five thousand Canadian youth will be homeless this year and on any given night, approximately 6,000 will be without a home. Due to the nature of the discourse surrounding “homelessness” and “homeless people,” there is often a misconception regarding how multifaceted homelessness is across the nation. Youth homelessness represents a particularly challenging problem: despite the vast amount of research into the circumstances surrounding homelessness and its effect on youth, the continued existence of youth homelessness remains a problem that needs to be dealt with in Canada.

In order to eliminate youth homelessness across the country, the Government of Canada must ensure they address the multi-faceted nature of youth homelessness in a collaborative manner. Research into the issue demonstrates that a variety of avenues exist for the federal government to take a leadership role in addressing and eliminating youth homelessness. These include increases in funding to programs alleviating youth homelessness, setting national standards for the quality and amount of services and financial assistance available to youth, and to ensure the voices of youth are appropriately heard in the process. This taskforce offers a set of seven recommendations that the federal government could take to address the issue of youth homelessness.