Canadian Observatory on Homelessness
The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness is the largest national research institute devoted to homelessness in Canada. The COH is the curator of the Homeless Hub.
- About Homelessness
- Doing Research
- Community Profiles
- Solutions
- Blog
- About Us
The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness is the largest national research institute devoted to homelessness in Canada. The COH is the curator of the Homeless Hub.
Canadian Observatory on Homelessness- Search
- Our Work
- Search Library
Search Library
Author(s): Mariya Bezgrebelna, Kwame McKenzie, Samantha Wells, Arun Ravindran, Michael Kral, Julia Christensen, Vicky Stergiopoulos, Stephen Gaetz, Sean A. Kidd
Publication Date: 2021
This systematic review of reviews was conducted to examine housing precarity and homelessness in relation to climate change and weather extremes internationally. In a thematic analysis of 15 reviews (5 systematic and 10 non-systematic), the following themes emerged: risk factors for homelessness/housing precarity, temperature extremes, health concerns, structural factors, natural disasters, and housing. First, an increased risk of homelessness ha...
Author(s): Sean Kidd, Mariya Bezgrebelna, Samantha Wells, Vicky Stergiopoulos, Arun Ravindran, Susan Greco, Mardi Daley, Julia Christensen, Michael Kral, Elliott Cappell, Kwame McKenzie
Publication Date: 2021
“A changing climate threatens to undermine the past 50 years of gains in public health, disrupting the wellbeing of communities and the foundations on which health systems are built… These effects act to exacerbate existing inequities, with vulnerable populations within and between countries affected more frequently and with a more lasting impact.” (Watts et al., 2020, p.134 - The 2020 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change:...
Author(s): Julia Christensen
Publication Date: 2016
In this article, I explore the relationship between housing, home and health amongst Indigenous homeless people living in the Canadian North. In particular, I examine the ways in which Indigenous homemaking practices conflict with housing policy, and exacerbate individual pathways to homelessness. I argue that integral components in northern Indigenous conceptualizations of home and, in turn, health are not only unrecognized in housing policy, bu...
Author(s): Julia Christensen, Colleen Davison, Leah Levac
Organization: Broadbent Institute
Publication Date: 2012
The Canadian North, which includes the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Nunavik, Labrador, and Nunatsiavut, is a vast region rich in Indigenous cultures, pristine landscapes and waterways, natural resources, and increasingly diverse communities. It is also a region known for having the highest rates of chronic housing need in Canada. Across the North, where more than half the population is Inuit (including Inuvialuit), First Nations (includ...
Author(s): Julia Christensen
Publication Date: 2013
In this article, I examine the sociocultural dimensions of Indigenous home and homelessness through a case study of increasing visible homelessness in two northern Canadian communities. Drawing on five years of ethnographic research on Indigenous homelessness in Yellowknife and Inuvik, two regional centres in the Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada, I suggest that Indigenous experiences of homelessness are at once collective and immediate. In par...
Author(s): Julia Christensen
Publication Date: 2012
Visible homelessness in the Northwest Territories, Canada is often described as a recent phenomenon by policy makers and the popular media alike. Indeed, since the late 1990s, homeless shelters in Yellowknife and Inuvik report a steady increase in demand for beds and other support for homeless people. Homelessness in these two communities disproportionately affects Aboriginal northerners, however little is known about their individual pathways to...
Author(s): Julia Christensen
Publication Date: 2012
A growing number of geographers seek to communicate their research to audiences beyond the academy. Community-based and participatory action research models have been developed, in part, with this goal in mind. Yet despite many promising developments in the way research is conducted and disseminated, researchers continue to seek methods to better reflect the “culture and context” of the communities with whom they work. During my doctoral research...
Author(s): Julia Christensen
Publication Date: 2008
I was born and raised in Yellowknife, capital of the Northwest Territories. In the last 10 years, the number of people without a stable place to live in my home community has grown. Yet, statistics from the few shelters in the territory, combined with data on core housing need, demonstrate that the experience of both visible and "hidden" forms of homelessness is shared by a significant number of northern people. One of the main...