Homelesshub's blog

It’s #BTS time!

That’s “Back to School” for those not up on their acronyms. We’re often asked how teachers and students can make use of the Homeless Hub for their work and studies. So this week’s Ask the Hub isn’t a response to a formal question but rather one that is raised often with us.

Today's infographic is on using hashtags, which comes from a blog post directly by Twitter. Hashtags, almost synonymous with Twitter, can work to enhance a marketing strategy or a campaign. "The brands that create the most effective ones and employ them well reap the benefits on Twitter. Those who haven’t invested the time and thought carefully about their hashtag(s) and how they are going to be used get predictable results."

Last week at the Homeless Hub:

This week's infographic comes from NeoMan Studios, an infographic design agency. "13 Reasons Why Your Brain Craves Infographics" is an interactive infographic which uses HTML5, to create an illusion of depth as you scroll through the content, adding to a multi-faceted visual experience.

The past week has been a busy one for researchers, here are a few things that we found interesting here at the Homeless Hub:

Tanya Gulliver tackled a good question, with a well thought out answer last Friday on our "Ask the Hub" edition. "I always hear mixed responses to whether you should give homeless people money on the street. Some say it only fuels addiction. What's the best way in your day to day life to help the homeless?" Click here to read the response.

Here at the Homeless Hub we love infographics. They are such a great way of conveying information. We’re going to share our favourites – created by us or others – every week, along with some research links to provide context.

This week’s infographic comes from the American Institutes for Research and is based on the “Service and Housing Interventions for Families in Transition (SHIFT) Longitudinal Study”.

We are hiring! If you are an undergrad student at York University with an interest in homeless issues, we may have a position for you. Through the Research At York (RAY) program we’ll be hiring three undergrads to help us with our work. Duties will vary but could include creating films, making infographics, writing blogs, monitoring social media and of course, research on homelessness. Deadline to apply is August 23rd.

This post is part of our Friday "Ask the Hub" blog series. Have a homeless-related question you want answered? E-mail us at thehub@edu.yorku.ca and we will provide a research-based answer.

Dear Homeless Hub

Many times when I come across a person who appears to be homeless, he/she also seems to be mentally ill. In your experience, have you discovered that most homeless people are also dealing with a mental illness of some sort? If so, is one kind of mental illness more prominent than others?

A new Homeless Hub blog feature, running usually on Mondays (it will run Tuesdays when there is a holiday or breaking news story) will be our weekly round-up. It’s our attempt at synthesizing and capturing some of our stories from the past week. We’ll share those that seemed to attract the most attention, as well as those that we think were overlooked. As always, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay informed on a daily basis.

Working at the Homeless Hub means becoming privy to a seemingly never-ending stream of data and research from experts in homelessness. Our staff are constantly working to update our resources, translate research papers into two-page research summaries and to highlight some of this information in social media through our Twitter feed and Facebook account.

Here are some highlights (good and bad) from the past week: