Reaching Home has funded Hub Solutions, a social enterprise of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH) to research the needs of frontline staff in the homelessness support sector and identify opportunities and avenues to improve employment and workplace conditions in the sector.

Four research questions guided this work:

1. What are the key skills (e.g., technical, interpersonal, educational, lived experience, empathy, etc.) that are required to work in the homelessness support sector?
2. What is the magnitude of precarious employment, employee retention and turnover, and discrimination experienced by frontline staff in the homelessness support sector. How do these issues vary for people with lived experience of homelessness and individuals of different gender, Indigenous, and racial identities?
3. What existing resources and supports are in place and offered to workers in the homelessness support sector in Canada? Do existing resources and supports provided to employees vary across different groups or categories of employees in the sector?
4. What policies and regulations, sector standards, resources and supports exist in the sector or are needed to protect workers, improve employment and workplace conditions, and meet the complex needs of frontline staff in the homelessness support sector in Canada?

This report highlights 7 opportunities for homelessness serving organizations to improve the working conditions of their frontline staff and areas for future research investigating the experiences of frontline staff in the homelessness support sector.

Funded by the Government of Canada through the Community Capacity and Innovation funding stream of Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy. The opinions and interpretations in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Government of Canada.