stephanie's blog

Youth homelessness is a serious issue that is often neglected in the Canadian school system. Every year, at least 35,000 youth experience homelessness in Canada, and with the continuing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the housing crisis, and the weakening of the economy, more and more youth are at risk of experiencing poverty and housing insecurity.

It is Sexual Health Week – a chance to reflect on the services, resources, and organizations working to improve sexual health outcomes in Canada – including access to reproductive care. 

At YWCA Hamilton, we have been working to promote and provide reproductive care to those who face barriers to access. Women, trans and non-binary peoples’ experiences of homelessness cannot be separated from their reproductive health and rights.

Explore tools that contribute to successful research with youth experiencing homelessness in a 90-minute workshop webinar!

Join leading research experts as they share strategies and lessons learned from impactful programs in North America.

Prevention is the key to ending youth homelessness, but what do the people on the front lines think of it? And what do they know about the proven interventions designed to do this work? If they know about the interventions, are they interested in putting them into practice? What kind of support would they need to do it?

Have you heard about Housing First for Youth? What about Youth Reconnect or Duty to Assist? These are just some of the youth homelessness prevention programs that can be implemented in communities of any size across Canada.
 
Take our survey to help us understand your knowledge of and interest in these youth homelessness prevention interventions and others, and what it would take to implement them in your community.
 

Today, August 1st, is Emancipation Day. It’s a day to recognize Canada’s history of slavery and discrimination. This date was chosen because August 1, 1834, marks the abolishment of slavery across the British Empire. In 2021, the House of Commons voted unanimously to designate August 1st as Emancipation Day. 

The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH) continues to evaluate the design and use of assessment tools within the homelessness sector, to ensure that communities have access to the best, most evidence-based resources. This blog shares our recent reflections on assessment tools and processes. It also highlights key findings from a national survey on assessment tools launched by the COH in the fall of 2021.

The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH) acknowledges its presence on the traditional territory of many Indigenous Nations. The area known as Tkaronto has been care taken by the Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the Huron-Wendat. It is now home to many First Nation, Inuit and Métis communities. We acknowledge the current treaty holders, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

Recent decades have seen the emergence of a worrying pattern: environmental initiatives – that are protected from criticism in public and political discourses – are being awarded large funding contracts despite their inability to tackle the issues they are intended to address. This article looks at one of these publicly-funded greening initiatives, Ville en Vert,  and highlights the wider socio-economic impacts of their urban greening projects in Montreal.

In support of the launch of the This Is Not Home (TINH) Project, below is an excerpt from a spoken word poem written by Shayla, a Lived Expert Advisor to the project, through the West End Womens' Resource Centre, Winnipeg, MB. Shayla is a writer, storyteller, and a Spoken Word artist/wordsmith.