Search Library
Publication Date: 2020
Objective
This systematic review synthesizes effectiveness evidence on interventions to prevent and address youth homelessness. It was conducted primarily for a United States policy and practice audience but involved an international synthesis of evidence.
Method
We conducted an international search that included eleven major academic electronic databases, 13 additional relevant institutional web-based publication databases, and a professional ou...
Publication Date: 2020
The 2020 Homeless Count in Metro Vancouver took place on the evening of March 3rd and throughout the day on March 4th. The count provides a 24-hour snapshot of the minimum number of people experiencing homelessness in Metro Vancouver. The purpose of the count is to estimate the number of people experiencing homelessness, obtain a demographic profile of those individuals, and identify trends compared to previous counts.The count included people wh...
Publication Date: 2020
At a time when homelessness, inequality and poverty plague Canadian society, an organization in Whistler, British Columbia has been working for over 20 years to combat some of the associated issues faced by vulnerable youth. This multi-year research project explored one of the programs offered by the organization with the intent of gaining an understanding of the short- and long-term impact, the future requirements for sustainability and growth,...
Publication Date: 2020
Context:
Poor physical and mental health and substance use disorder can be causes and consequences of homelessness. Approximately 2.1 million persons per year in the United States experience homelessness. People experiencing homelessness have high rates of emergency department use, hospitalization, substance use treatment, social services use, arrest, and incarceration.
Objectives:
A standard approach to treating homeless persons with a disabil...
Organization: Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton - Indigenous Reaching Home Team, Hub Solutions, The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness
Publication Date: 2020
This report explores the national shift in addressing homelessness through a “coordinated access” approach and its impact on Indigenous individuals and families experiencing homelessness. Launched April 1st, 2019, Reaching Home, Canada’s national homelessness strategy, has required that all Designated Communities (i.e., urban centres in Canada) have a coordinated access system in place by March 31, 2022.
The focus of the report is largely on the...
Organization: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness; A Way Home Canada; Making the Shift Youth Homelessness Demonstration Lab
Publisher: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press
Publication Date: 2020
This framework introduces and provides an overview of Family and Natural Supports (FNS), a preventive approach to addressing youth homelessness. FNS is a key component of a larger systemic shift in responses to homelessness, away from emergency service provision and instead toward the prevention of youth homelessness. This framework explains FNS, its core principles and guiding philosophy, presents considerations for implementing FNS in communiti...
Publication Date: 2020
Editorial
This is the first edition of the EJH to appear since the emergence of covid-19, the subsequent lockdown and the tentative gradual easing of earlier restrictions. For those experiencing homelessness, while it is not yet clear how many deaths occurred as a consequence of the virus, what is clear is that the standard response to homelessness, the provision of congregate temporary shelters is no longer a tenable response due to covid-19. Sh...
Publication Date: 2020
Background
Homelessness is a risk factor for family involvement with child welfare services (CWS). Housing interventions are promising—but reasons for this are not well understood, and housing resources could be better targeted to families at risk of increased CWS involvement.
Objective
We sought to better understand the relationship between homelessness and CWS involvement and examine whether homeless shelter data could combine with CWS data to...
Organization: Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness
Publication Date: 2020
The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH) Recovery for All campaign recommends an enhanced federal commitment (with timelines and targets) as a way to implement a rapid and extensive response and to end homelessness. The current pandemic adds urgency to this objective with the intent to prevent those temporarily housed during COVID-19 from being returned into an emergency shelter system that perpetuates chronic homelessness.
Recovery for A...
Publication Date: 2020
Little is known regarding the types of interventions most effective in supporting wellness and recovery of victims of gender-based violence, particularly those simultaneously experiencing homelessness. This qualitative study explored the experiences of 18 young women experiencing gender-based violence and homelessness who participated in a community-based, trauma-informed group intervention in Toronto, Canada. Participants completed audio-recorde...
Publication Date: 2020
Supportive housing is a promising intervention for insecurely housed families in the child welfare system. This study examined factors associated with housing and child welfare outcomes to understand whom supportive housing benefits the most. Analyses included 500 insecurely housed families involved in child protective services across five U.S. sites. Researchers randomized families to receive supportive housing or the usual services offered to f...
Publication Date: 2020
This report summarizes findings from interviews and surveys conducted from December 2018 to October 2019 with 42 participants, including 33 youth at-risk of, and experiencing, homelessness and 9 key informants from youth-serving organizations across York Region in order to understand the unique needs and experiences of LGBTQ2S youth at-risk of, and experiencing, homelessness in York Region.
Key Findings
The key findings from this research project...
Publication Date: 2020
While people across the globe adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic, young people have been the center of many news stories. Millions of young people are required to stay home due to school closures, and adults are forced to consider alternative structures to support youths’ needs. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed multiple injustices and forms of oppression experienced by the most vulnerable in our country, which includes young people experiencing pove...
Publication Date: 2020
This open-access article takes an equity-informed perspective on emerging trends and interventions in the homeless-serving sector to reduce the adverse impact of COVID-19 on people experiencing homelessness in North America.
Trialing the feasibility of a critical time intervention for youth transitioning out of homelessness
Publication Date: 2020
Little is known regarding the specific types of service models and collaborations that are necessary to support diverse populations of youth in transition out of homelessness. Transitional supports addressing the complex needs of this population are needed to stabilize the array of housing arrangements that youth access. This study was a pilot randomized controlled trial of one such critical time intervention, called the Housing Outreach Program—...
Organization: Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
Publication Date: 2020
Despite remarkable resilience and high aspirations, many youth in foster care still struggle to complete their education, secure steady employment, build connections with supportive adults, develop critical life skills, and remain stably housed. One manifestation of the challenges these young people face is a high rate of homelessness.
The Alameda County Social Services Agency (SSA) developed and implemented the Youth Transitions Partnership (YTP...
Publication Date: 2020
Youth homelessness is a growing crisis impacting urban high schools across the United States. Black youth, in particular, are disproportionately affected. While the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act is designed to provide educational access to students experiencing homelessness, the extent to which the policy supports Black students is unclear. This qualitative study uses structural racism as an analytic framework to examine the narratives o...
Publication Date: 2020
Mass homelessness emerged in Canada in the wake of neoliberal policies that reduced government production of housing and other supportive measures. Efforts to reduce homelessness have occurred in three stages: 1) an emergency response in the 1990s that consisted mostly of investment in shelters, soup kitchens, and day programs, 2) the implementation of community plans to end homelessness, combined with the adoption of Housing First as a strategy...
Organization: Lived Experience Lab, A Way Home Canada, Covenant House
Publication Date: 2020
Goal: The overall goal of this project is to rapidly synthesize real-world knowledge on promising mental health and substance use practices utilized by front-line providers serving young people who are experiencing or have experienced homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Background: An estimated 35,000-40,000 Canadian youth (aged 13 – 24 years) experience homelessness at some point during the year and at least 6,000 on any given night (Gaet...
Organization: Women’s National Housing and Homelessness Network
Publisher: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness
Publication Date: 2020
In all provinces and territories, women, girls, and gender diverse peoples experience some of the most severe forms of housing need. In order to better understand these challenges, the Women’s National Housing and Homelessness Network (WNHHN) decided to undertake an extensive scoping review of available evidence on women’s homelessness in Canada. The Canadian Observatory was hired to complete this literature review, guided at each step by the exp...