The Calgary Homeless Foundation imported and adapted the ‘Vulnerability Index’ from Common Ground in New York City and have tested it in Calgary. With our program partners we’ve been successful in housing dozens of people off of the VI and have generated some outstanding new insight into our homeless population in the process.

We’ve updated and adapted the Vulnerability Index into a Canadian re-housing tool we now call the “Re-Housing Triage and Assessment Survey (RTAS).”

The RTAS is a survey that can be used to assess the health and vulnerability of homeless people in your community. It will help you to prioritize and match resources with client needs, by making sure that the supports and housing available in your communities are being accessed by those who need them the most.

With the help of a Service Canada grant, we created a toolkit to show you how to use the RTAS.

This toolkit is user friendly, adaptable to many settings and contexts and has been developed using research and best practices to ensure its value as an action tool for ending homelessness. The information in this toolkit can be used by community based service providers, government departments, funders, researchers or any organization interested in ending homelessness.

This toolkit will show you how to use the Rehousing Triage and Assessment Survey (RTAS). The RTAS can be used to assess the health and vulnerability of homeless people in your community. It will help you to prioritize and match resources with client needs, by making sure that the supports and housing available in your communities are being accessed by those who need them the most.