Researchers in London are trying to get a better understanding of who and how many people in Canada are homeless.
The Lawson Health Research Institute announced the new research project on Wednesday that aims to develop more accurate data sources related to homelessness. The clearer picture of who is homeless in Canada could see supports and services better distributed to the regions where they are most needed.
“To offer effective and efficient services, we need to know how many people are experiencing homelessness, along with their characteristics, location and needs," said Lawson scientist Dr. Richard Booth. "Right now, it’s difficult to track if things are getting better or worse, or simply changing, and if efforts to reduce the homeless population are making a difference. We don’t fully know the unique challenges of the ‘invisible homeless’ or if different subgroups are emerging."
Currently, many communities use shelter data or a method called "point in time" where volunteers go out and count the number of people living rough in the area.
"Generally, these methods will still miss people who are temporarily staying with others or living in rough or abandoned areas, and is limited to a single point in time – often just one day of counting. It’s often not feasible for smaller communities to do this due to the effort required and it’s a population often missed in our census data,” said Booth.
With funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada, researchers with the newly formed homelessness counts research project intend to examine existing databases, such as provincial health data. From there they will try to determine whether the information can be used as a more accurate, accessible, and cost-effective way to track homelessness.
Researchers will also be leading focus groups with several communities across Canada to learn more about how data is tracked and accessed. They will consult with groups providing services such as homeless serving agencies, mental health and addiction agencies, hospitals, emergency services, and municipal governments. As well, the team plans on conducting interviews with people who have personally experienced homelessness.
Other demographics researchers hope to incorporate into the data on homelessness include gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, involvement in the criminal justice system, psychiatric diagnoses, and physical diagnosis.
All of the information will then be incorporated into existing datasets to improve the performance of an algorithm previously developed through a provincial research study and a rapid report on COVID-19 and homelessness. Machine learning will be used to generate enhanced risk and burden modeling.
"Homelessness is a complex social problem that touches on many different systems. It is made even more difficult to tackle when we have big gaps in the data," said Dr. Cheryl Forchuk, assistant scientific director at Lawson. "Our hope is to prototype a centralized surveillance system that can be scaled up across Canada to help make the right services available in the right places.”
