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.
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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.
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Author(s): Nick Falvo
Organization: Presentation to United Church Women
Publication Date: 2014
Overview:
Government support for housing
Social assistance
Social housing
Homelessness
“Housing First”
Summary
For more information on this presentation read NIck Falvo's blog post "Affordable Housing and Homelesness".
Author(s): Nick Falvo
Organization: Centre for Policy Alternatives
Publication Date: 2007
There are many ways in which money for affordable housing can be put to use.
Three key methods are:
1. build non-profit housing;
2. provide housing allowances or rent supplements; and
3. provide tax credits for the developers of rental housing.
All three methods have strengths and weaknesses that merit study.
The private housing market, by itself, is ineffective at delivering newly-built housing for low-income tenants in large urban cent...
Author(s): Nick Falvo
Organization: Annual Conference of the European Network for Housing Research
Publication Date: 2013
This presentation is based on forthcoming research that will appear in the 2013-2014 edition of How Ottawa Spends (McGill-Queen's University Press).
Download: Powerpoint
Author(s): Nick Falvo
Publication Date: 2011
Last weekend, Nick Falvo spoke on a panel at the Annual Conference of the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association. The panel was inspired in large part by the recent debate in Toronto over Mayor Rob Ford’s attempt to sell social housing units to private buyers. The panel, entitled “To Privatize or Not to Privatize? That is the question,” included Nick Falvo, Vince Brescia (President and CEO of the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontari...
Author(s): Nick Falvo
Organization: The Progressive Economics Forum
Publication Date: 2012
Last week I was in Whitehorse where I released a peer-reviewed policy report on poverty in Yukon. The report was part of the much larger Social Economy Research Network of Northern Canada project.
Report findings include the following: -Ignoring poverty can be quite costly, as has been clearly demonstrated by research on the ‘costs of poverty’ done by economist Nathan Laurie and others, including PEF Blogger Iglika Ivanova. This is due largely to...
Author(s): Nick Falvo
Organization: Northern Public Affairs (NPA)
Publication Date: 2012
On May 24, 2012, I released a (peer-reviewed) policy report on poverty in Yukon. The report is entitled Poverty Amongst Plenty: Waiting for the Yukon Government to Adopt a Poverty Reduction Strategy.
Most Canadian jurisdictions today have a “poverty reduction strategy,” but as the title of this report suggests, Yukon has yet to implement one.
See the Full Report: Poverty Amongst Plenty: Waiting for the Yukon Government to Adopt a Poverty Reductio...

Author(s): Nick Falvo
Organization: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness
Publication Date: 2012
Poverty is bad for the economy, leads to higher health care costs and takes a serious toll on human lives. Most Canadian jurisdictions have developed poverty reduction strategies in the past decade, but Yukon has not. This policy report will provide an overview of poverty indicators in Yukon. It will discuss child apprehensions, housing, land development and homelessness. The report will then provide an overview of the Yukon Child Benefit, social...
Author(s): Nick Falvo
Publication Date: 2008
In North America, the traditional standard for housing homeless adults is the “treatment first” or “continuum of care” model. This involves what is essentially a lengthy and arduous audition, wherein a provider or team of providers of services to the homeless judges a homeless person’s “housing readiness.” The assessment continues as the person progresses from emergency shelter to transitional housing to permanent housing with few if any supports...
Author(s): Nick Falvo
Publication Date: 2009
The emergent Housing First model, focused on new means of rapid rehousing of the homeless, is popular in North America among policy makers and the mass media. Yet little has been written on the Housing First model's transferability to Canadian municipalities. This report documents, analyses and interprets Toronto's Streets to Homes (S2H) programme, using primary and secondary research including semi-structured key informant interviews. The report...
Author(s): Nick Falvo
Publication Date: 2011
This chapter is about housing in the Northwest Territories (NWT), especially housing for low-income households. The chapter compares housing in the NWT with housing in the rest of Canada.
Author(s): Nick Falvo
Publication Date: 2007
The 1990s may well have represented the peak of neoliberalism in Canada, and pressure had mounted on senior levels of government to cut spending, not increase it. The focus was on eliminating deficits and debts, not adding to them. Times have changed somewhat. The federal debt in Canada is almost never talked about now. Tax cuts are not as popular. Canadians and their leaders appear to have taken note that neoliberalism came with a cost, and th...
Author(s): Nick Falvo
Publication Date: 2011
By definition, a person needs housing to cease being homeless. And until the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) provides appropriate housing for those who need it, homelessness there won’t go away.
My recent report, Homelessness in Yellowknife: An Emerging Social Challenge, looks at Yellowknife as a case study, but makes policy recommendations for the entire territory. Done in partnership with the Centre for Northern Families, it unde...
Author(s): Nick Falvo
Publication Date: 2011
Mayor Rob Ford recently backtracked on a crucial issue. First he threatened to use revenue from the sale of public housing units to balance the city’s budget. Twenty-four hours later, he flip-flopped and agreed that the revenue should be used to fix Toronto’s existing social housing stock (as originally promised). Ford’s about-face speaks to the real-life nightmare that would ensue if important repairs were not made to existing public housi...

Author(s): Nick Falvo, Mary McCreadie
Publisher: The Homeless Hub
Publication Date: 2011
There is a considerable amount of visible homelessness in Yellowknife (NWT), yet very little third-party analysis of the situation. This report begins by briefly discussing who is homeless in Yellowknife and then outlines program responses, including emergency shelters and various models of housing. An overview will then be provided of major funding initiatives from the federal and territorial governments, as well as various forms of homelessness...

Author(s): Nick Falvo
Organization: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness
Publication Date: 2011
There is a considerable amount of visible homelessness in Yellowknife (NWT), yet very little third-party analysis of the situation. This report begins by briefly discussing who is homeless in Yellowknife and then outlines program responses, including emergency shelters and various models of housing. An overview will then be provided of major funding initiatives from the federal and territorial governments, as well as various forms of homelessness...
Author(s): Nick Falvo
Publication Date: 2011
In the aftermath of two damning reports by the City of Toronto’s auditor, the entire board of directors of the Toronto Community Housing Corp. has been replaced and multiple staff have been let go.
But privatizing Canada’s largest provider of affordable housing would be expensive for both taxpayers and renter households over the long term.
Author(s): Frances Abele, Nick Falvo, Arlene Haché
Publication Date: 2010
Though several larger papers will be coming out of this work over the next few years, the research team has released this short piece that looks very generally at homelessness among Indigenous people in Canada's North. A longer chapter on affordable housing in the NWT is slated to appear in next year's edition of How Ottawa Spends (published by McGill-Queen's University Press).
There is also a plan in place to release a community report on homel...
Author(s): Nick Falvo
Publication Date: 2010
You can step over homeless people, but you can’t ignore them. The recession is finally over, but we haven’t seen all of the after-effects, especially when we’re talking about homelessness. And if our political leaders don’t come to terms with this soon, we’ll see a steep rise in homelessness in the near future.
Author(s): Nick Falvo
Publication Date: 2010
Recessions are much more than a numerical change in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or another term for high unemployment. The full impact of a recession takes many years to completely unfold and a recession’s impact on households and communities is neither straightforward nor immediate. The homeless population of a given jurisdiction is one of the last groups to see a change after the onset of a recession, making homelessness the opposite of the pr...