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): Abe Oudshoorn, Kayla May, Amy Van Berkum, Kaitlin Schwan, Alex Nelson, Faith Eiboff, Stephanie Begun, Naomi Nichols, Colleen Parsons
Organization: Western University
Publication Date: 2021
Homelessness is gendered and yet there is limited uptake of gender- based approaches to community planning across Canada. This research report explores if/how communities use a gender-based approach to community planning to prevent and end homelessness.
Key Findings/Outcomes
Women and girls (cis and trans) are under-recognized and underserved.
While service providers recognize the unique needs of women and girls, they encounter barriers to the br...
Author(s): Maxime Goulet-Langlois, Naomi Nichols, Jason Pearman
Organization: Mitacs
Publication Date: 2020
Canada’s social impact sector is driven to deliver social and environmental benefits and increase wellbeing. Comprising a blend of charities, nonprofits, foundations, public sector and for-profit entities, the sector dedicates countless hours and spends billions of dollars per year to improve outcomes.
Despite this investment, too few social and environmental change efforts are seeing sufficient gains: from youth homelessness and food insecurity...

Author(s): Naomi Nichols, Kaitlin Schwan, Stephen Gaetz, Melanie Redman, David French, Sean A. Kidd, Bill O'Grady
Organization: A Way Home Canada, The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness
Publication Date: 2017
With the release of Without a Home: The National Youth Homelessness Survey (2016), we now have robust national data on the links between youth homelessness and child welfare involvement. Without a Home, conducted by the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness in partnership with A Way Home Canada, surveyed 1,103 youth experiencing homelessness across Canada. Youth in 42 different communities and nine of the 10 Canadian provinces, as well as Nuna...
Author(s): Naomi Nichols, Carey Doberstein
Publisher: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness
Publication Date: 2016
This book was produced to support continued momentum for our collective efforts to make change. We set out to shine a light on the growing body of research about systems-level approaches to homelessness in North America as well as the growing number of initiatives being implemented by diverse groups of researchers, community agencies and different levels of government. What has emerged from this book has surpassed our expectations.
Author(s): Naomi Nichols
Publisher: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness
Publication Date: 2016
The chapter offers an ethnographic account of three key inter-sectoral relations impacting experiences of homelessness and/or housing stability among youth in Ontario, Canada. Rather than focusing on the delivery of services in the youth homelessness sector, I reveal how things work in other sectors that influence interactions between service providers and youth in the homelessness sector. By granting visibility to the inter-organizational contex...
Author(s): Naomi Nichols
Publisher: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness
Publication Date: 2016
This chapter describes the collaborative planning and change process spear-headed by a group of service providers in the city of Hamilton, Ontario: the Street Youth Planning Collaborative (SYPC). The SYPC represents a grassroots-led (or ‘bottom-up’) effort to collectively identify and address the structural factors and individual circumstances influencing the experiences of street-involved youth in the City of Hamilton. In telling the SYPC’s stor...
Author(s): Carey Doberstein, Naomi Nichols
Publisher: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness
Publication Date: 2016
Homelessness is a systemic problem involving numerous sectors, institutions and agencies and, therefore, requires more integrated system responses in terms of governance, policy and programs. The widespread homelessness experienced in our communities indeed reveals deep structural inequities in our economy and society that ought to be addressed, but also represents a systematic governance failure characterized by a lack of ownership of this issue...
Author(s): Naomi Nichols
Publication Date: 2013
Responding to Youth Homelessness: A Systems Approach Learning Series - Session #3
Keynote: Naomi Nichols, Applied Scientist, Hospital for Sick Children
In the third session of this Learning Series, Naomi Nichols illustrates the links between child protective services, social assistance and the youth homelessness sector.
This learning series was made possible by a United Way York Region partnership with York University’s Knowledge Mobilization (...
Author(s): Naomi Nichols
Publisher: Canadian Observatory On Homelessness
Publication Date: 2013
This chapter begins with an overview of current research, which points to a relationship between child protection services and youth homelessness. I describe how child protection services in Canada are organized structurally, focusing on institutional practices and policy that influence a young person’s ability to maintain safe, adequate, and stable housing after leaving “care.” I use ethnographic data from community-based institutional ethnograp...