tgulliver's blog

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, contact us through Facebook or even Tweet us your questions and we will provide a research-based answer.

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, contact us through Facebook or even Tweet us your questions and we will provide a research-based answer. 

Last week we received this question via Twitter :

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.

Yesterday, via our Twitter account, we received this question:

After last week’s Ask the Hub question on panhandling we’ve had a lot of discussion on Twitter, Facebook and the blog about the issue. Our next question comes from Twitter follower @PurpleSaxifrage who tweeted the following:

Dear Homeless Hub,
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?

Alex Flint
Toronto, ON

Dear Alex,

This is a question that I was asked a lot when I was teaching the “Homelessness in Canadian Society” course at Ryerson University. My answer was always the same “It’s your choice, but have the decency to look someone in the eye and acknowledge them.”

This is our first instalment of the 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

I’m a qualitative sociologist and while I sometimes like to play with numbers and images I’m often very limited in what I’m able to do myself. I was very excited to learn recently of a tool created by researchers from the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness conference is happening this week in Washington and I’ve been following the hashtag #NAEH13 to see what’s new in research and homelessness. Iain de Jong (@OrgCode) posted the following: “New Orleans on track to end chronic homelessness by 2015. Huge high five! #NAEH13”

It’s hot out there! Most of Canada is expected to experience a heat wave, or near heat wave conditions for much of this week. Already this year we’ve seen deaths of children in Ontario and Alberta after they were forgotten in a vehicle for a short time. According to San Francisco State University, 20 children in the US have died in cars already this year; 33 died last year.

Our ground-breaking new report – The State of Homelessness in Canada: 2013 – highlights the current status of homelessness in Canada. And the picture isn’t pretty. Over 200,000 Canadians experience homelessness every year; 50,000 or more are part of the hidden homeless group and are couch-surfing, doubling or tripling up with friends and family, or living in unsafe and insecure housing. Many more Canadians are facing challenges in paying their rent and meeting other basic survival needs, including food.