LONDON, ONT. -- A research team led by Lawson Health Research Institute (LHRI) announced a new project on Wednesday, that aims to better identify who is experiencing homelessness across Canada.
“The homeless experience varies significantly across Canada, especially within different rural and remote regions of the country,” says Dr. Cheryl Forchuk, assistant scientific director at Lawson.
The Homelessness Counts research project aims to identify people in the homeless population that aren’t initially visible.
LHRI says that many communities rely on shelter data, but not all regions have shelters and not all people who are experiencing homeless use shelters when available.
“Generally, these methods will still miss people who are temporarily staying with others or living in rough or abandoned areas, and is limited to a single point in time – often just one day of counting. It’s often not feasible for smaller communities to do this due to the effort required and it’s a population often missed in our census data,” explained Dr. Richard Booth, a scientist at Lawson and associate professor at Western University, in a statement.
With funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada, the team will look at provincial health data, such as hospital visits, to help determine "a more accurate” number of people experiencing homelessness.
It's all in an effort to ensure proper supports and services are readily available to them.
In the initial stages of the project, the team is holding focus groups in communities across Canada to learn how data is tracked and accessed.
Hospitals, emergency services and other organizations will also be contacted.
“To offer effective and efficient services, we need to know how many people are experiencing homelessness, along with their characteristics, location and needs. Right now, it’s difficult to track if things are getting better or worse, or simply changing, and if efforts to reduce the homeless population are making a difference. We don’t fully know the unique challenges of the ‘invisible homeless’ or if different subgroups are emerging,” Booth added.
