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Organization: nner City Health Associates, City of Toronto
Publication Date: 2020
In response to the global COVID-19 pandemic and risks associated with local transmission in municipal settings, the Inner City Health Associates and the City of Toronto are collaboratively developing a plan to support people experiencing homelessness during times with heightened risk of infection. This collaborative plan includes the establishment of a dedicated site where individuals experiencing homelessness can be safely and effectively isolat...
Guidance for Providers of Services for People Experiencing Homelessness (in the Context of COVID-19)
Publication Date: 2020
Organizations, community health workers and volunteers play an important role in helping prevent the spread of COVID-19 among those who experience homelessness. It is important that these service providers plan ahead and take precautions in their environments/workplaces, based on public health advice to reduce disruptions to their services. Consider reaching out to the population you serve, management and local governments to understand the essen...
Organization: Canadian Network for the Health and Housing of People Experiencing Homelessnes
Publication Date: 2020
The below guidance was developed by a number of public health professionals, primary care physicians, psychiatrists, addictions medicine specialists, Municipal shelter and housing leadership, community health, social support, housing and addictions agencies, provides practical information and guidance to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the homeless population. Due to the unique circumstances of serving people experiencing homelessne...
Publication Date: 2020
This guide presents clinical evidence to help develop interventions to improve health and social outcomes for folks vulnerably housed or experiencing homelessness.
Key Points:
Clinical assessment and care of homeless and vulnerably housed populations should include tailoring approaches to a person’s gender, age, Indigenous heritage, ethnicity and history of trauma; and advocacy for comprehensive primary health care.
As initial steps in the ca...
Organization: A Way Home Canada, Making the Shift Youth Homelessness Social Innovation Lab
Publication Date: 2020
This important submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child outlines how Canada can use the Duty to Assist model to accelerate its obligations under General Comment No. 21 to protect the rights of children and youth at risk of homelessness.
Organization: PROOF
Publication Date: 2020
Food insecurity – inadequate or uncertain access to food because of financial constraints – is a serious public health problem in Canada, and all indications are that the problem is getting worse.
Drawing on data for 103,500 households from Statistics Canada’s Canadian Community Health Survey conducted in 2017 and 2018, we found that 12.7% of households experienced some level of food insecurity in the previous 12 months. There were 4.4 million pe...
Publication Date: 2020
This Australian-based article outlines six research-informed recommendations for improving housing retention among folks experiencing homelessness.
Publication Date: 2020
Homelessness has negative implications for mental well-being and quality of life. This paper identifies the quality of life variables that contribute to positive or negative wellbeing, reporting on a regression analysis from 343 individuals experiencing homelessness in Canada. Results indicate that a lack of sleep duration and quality reduced mental well-being for both genders, not having access to food and/or hygiene facilities decreased men’s w...
Organization: Canadian Medical Association Journal
Publication Date: 2020
This is an open-acces article outlining clinical guidelines for health and social service providers seeking to build relationships with Indigenous Peoples experiencing homelessness.
Key Points:
• In Canada, Indigenous people are 8 times more likely to be homeless than non-Indigenous people and represent 10%–80% of the total homeless population in large urban centres.
• The roots of Indigenous homelessness involve colonial disruptions of relatio...
Organization: Canadian Public Policy
Publication Date: 2020
This journal article investigates the impact of supportive housing (Housing First, or HF) programs on public service utilization of people experiencing homelessness in Calgary, Alberta. We use data on clients between 2012 and 2016, and, using a pre–post design, we assess the interaction of each client with the health and justice systems. We estimate the savings for $1 spent on HF to be between $1.17 and $2.84. There are potential estimation biase...
Organization: Western University, Centre for Research on Health Equity and Social Inclusion
Publication Date: 2020
The purpose of this guide is to support organizations wishing to offer private rooms within their existing spaces. This guide will both assist you in considering key questions to help you organize your services as well as provide you with practical resources and policies to move from concept to action.
This guide draws heavily from the process in place at The Salvation Army Centre of Hope (CoH) in London, Ontario as of August, 2019. Therefore, th...
Organization: Convenant House
Publication Date: 2020
Exiting sex trafficking can be a long and arduous process, with survivors having many needs that must be addressed before, during and after exiting. Often this process takes many attempts.
To date, very little work has been done to document the process survivors must undergo in order to successfully escape from sex trafficking or to document their specific needs while attempting to do so.
The following pages detail the findings of a national rese...
Organization: HOP-C, Center for Addiction and Mental Health, Center for Mindfulness Studies, Covenant House, Loft, SKETCH Arts and the Wellesley Institute
Publication Date: 2017
mindyourmind worked with a group of youth in Toronto that know the struggle of transitioning out of homelessness and into stable housing. These youth wanted to empower others in similar circumstances to seek help, and provide information, coping tools, tips and distractions around the issues they may be facing. Together we created “My _________”, a 92 page prompted bullet journal/survival guide! You can download and print your own journal.
mindyo...
Publication Date: 2020
The challenges facing domestic violence (DV) survivors has become the subject of a growing body of intersectional analysis; this paper presents a new intersectional framework for analysing DV policy and practice. Examining a partnership between women’s sector organizations and the criminal justice system in London, using interviews with professionals from the bodies, the paper offers an intersectional analysis of the implications, positive and ne...
Organization: Tenant Duty Counsel Programs
Publication Date: 2020
Anyone renting a home in Ontario’s major urban centres knows all too well how expensive rents have become. For the majority of renters living on low to middle incomes, rents have climbed so high that daily sacrifices have to be made and major expenses put off just to keep a roof over their head. Those searching for a new rental home today are faced with skyrocketing rents that are unaffordable. Even rental homes that were traditionally more affor...
Organization: Journal of Community Psychology
Publication Date: 2020
Prior research with youth experiencing homelessness suggests that community experiences can play an important role in their resilience and well‐being. This literature suggests that a sense of community (SOC) and social support may be two key interpersonal factors related to the well‐being of this population. However, quantitative research exploring these relationships has resulted in inconsistent findings, which may be due to a lack of understand...
Organization: Edmonton Social Planning Social Council
Publication Date: 2020
The Edmonton Social Planning Council (ESPC) undertook this report to address one of the most intractable challenges facing low income Edmonton households: the excessively long waits for affordable rental accommodation. The long waits not only inflict financial and emotional hardship on low income renter households. They also create the real risk that these households could end up homeless without a roof over their heads.
Finding the best solution...
Publication Date: 2020
Frequent emergency department (ED) users experiencing homelessness are associated with high costs for healthcare systems yet interventions for this group have been minimally investigated. This study used 24-month data from a multisite randomized controlled trial of Housing First (HF) to examine how effective the intervention is in helping frequent ED users with a mental illness to achieve housing stability, improve behavioural health and function...
Organization: Egale Canada
Publication Date: 2020
The National LGBTQI2S Action Plan addressess 12 priority areas across government that impact LGBTQI2S people. Along with each priority area, there are tangible action items for the government to prioritize as it moves into planning for the next 2-4 years. The action items contained in this plan are the result of extensive literature reviews, assessments of current policy and legislation, and findings from Egale's national research studies along w...
Organization: A Way Home Canada, Canadian Observatory on Homelessness
Publication Date: 2020
This report details five lessons that emerged from Making the Shift Youth Homelessness Demonstration Lab's multi-year, collaborative project prototyping and testing approaches to help prevent and facilitate sustainable exits from youth homelessness. Key learnings in the report are organized into five categories: developing and refining program models; supporting communities to achieve Collective Impact; enabling technical training and assistance...