Last week at the Hub:

Our "Ask The Hub" section is still going strong as questions keep coming in. Last week, Tanya Gulliver explored how sexual violence both contributes and is a product of homelessness. To put the issue into perspective, some of the shocking reports Tanya cited estimated that 93% of homeless mothers have experienced sexual violence.

The Calgary Homeless Foundation has been busy crunching numbers. They broke down the cost of housing 72 previously homeless people and compared that with the cost of emergency services to find that housing them saved taxpayers $2.5 million every year. For more information on some of their findings please visit here.

In case you missed it, CBC's Morning North runs a radio show on homelessness called No Fixed Address. On Wednesday they had Annie Boucher, a Ph.D student from Laurentian University on to talk about the lived experiences of homeless women that she is working with in Sudbury. The lack of affordable and quality housing along with horrid housing system rules in the north has driven people into living in the bush.

In Bernie Pauly and Geoff Cross' experiences with the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness they've found that consulting with persons suffering from homelessness about their needs is a huge step on the path of eradicating homelessness. In their Facing Homelessness: Evaluating Systemic Responses to Homelessness post they point to the need for systemic solutions to structural problems that face homeless people. 

Isaac Coplan shed some light on some lesser known urban homelessness trends in Canada with this week's infographic. It shows an intimate link between the recession and homelessness in Waterloo where there has been a 229% increase in families accessing homeless services since  2008. 

For teachers interested in introducing the topic of homelessness into their classes, you can visit our Integrated Unit on Homelessness for Elementary Schools for some lesson plan outlines. Each lesson is designed to stand alone so you can pick one of the many we have to incorporate into your class.

On the research end of things a new study is out that links project based Housing First initiatives, which work to house chronically homeless people, with overall reductions in jail time and police bookings.