Forming an accurate count of Canada’s homeless population is an insurmountable task, researchers say. But that hasn’t stopped them from trying.
In Statistics Canada’s 2023 review of Canadian homelessness data, the latest estimate they provide is from 2014. That estimate says 235,000 people experience “the many different types of homelessness” every year, according to the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, a research organization.
“We probably will never have a full understanding [of the homelessness figure], as our approaches usually lag behind real time, and the phenomenon is very fluid,” said Richard Booth, an associate processor at the University of Western Ontario.
In 2019, Booth and his colleagues conducted a study looking at the homeless population in Ontario using a new method. Instead of pulling data from Ontario’s shelter system, they analyzed healthcare records. The researchers now believe the true national count is well above 235,000 people.
“Many people who are homeless are not accessing shelters. And only around 68 communities, which are mostly large urban centres, contribute information to this number. With all these factors at play, I guesstimate it could easily be tripled,” said Cheryl Forchuk, a distinguished university professor at Western University and one of the study’s researchers.
And without a good estimate of the problem, government and society can’t adequately address it, Forchuk says.
“The programs are underfunded because the numbers are faulty.”
‘Huge intersection’
Booth and his colleagues write in their study that Canada’s data-rich universal healthcare system offers a promising alternative to counting homeless people.
“[S]everal administrative databases, such as those for hospital services, are standardized nationwide, allowing for population level tracking of health and healthcare delivery of Canadians,” the study reads.
Analyzing healthcare data also allowed the researchers to examine the health of homeless people compared to the general population.
“One of the things that we notice when working with the homeless population is that they get sick a lot,” said Forchuk. “So clearly there’s a huge intersection between the healthcare system and homeless people.”
A 2014 Megaphone Magazine survey found the median age of death for a homeless person in British Columbia is between 40 and 49.1, almost half the life expectancy of the average British Columbian at the time, which was 82.65 years.
“If we don’t have numbers to justify that individuals who are experiencing homelessness experience health/social issues in a disproportionate fashion to the general public, it is really hard to facilitate system change,” said Booth.
The researchers looked for housing status indicators in the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System, the Ontario Mental Health Reporting System and the National Rehabilitation Reporting System, among others.
They concluded about 60,000 Ontarians experienced homelessness in 2016, a 67 per cent increase from 2007.
But Booth believes even that underestimates the problem, as the researchers’ strategy relies on homeless people coming into contact with the healthcare system.
What is homelessness?
In its 2023 report, Statistics Canada lists three reasons why estimating the homelessness population is challenging. The first has to do with access. Finding someone with no fixed address is difficult and expensive.
The second has to do with contact, as none of the traditional methods of surveying such as phone, internet or mail are “fully adequate to reach this population.”
And finally, there is the question of reliability and safety. “Finding adequate privacy settings for the interview may be difficult, and security for the interviewers is also a consideration.”
Another problem with understanding the scale of homelessness is defining it, researchers say. What exactly is homelessness?
Statistics Canada breaks the problem into four categories.
The most severe kind of homelessness is people who are living in public or private places without consent, as well as those living places “not fit for permanent human habitation,” such as in tents or under bridges.
Then there is what’s known as emergency sheltered homeless, which are people similar to the first category who have been temporarily sheltered.
Then there is the provisionally accommodated, also known as hidden homelessness. This includes people living in transitional housing, with temporary host families or other arrangements such as being committed to an institution.
Lastly, there are people who aren’t currently homeless, but are at risk of becoming so. Statistics Canada says this category is important to understand the “cycle of homelessness.”
“It includes individuals that are experiencing a serious imminent risk of homelessness due to unemployment, domestic violence or a specific housing situation but are not considered homeless,” reads the 2023 report.
A circular problem
Booth, Forchuk and the rest of the research team are now taking their healthcare system approach nationwide in a new study. So far, Forchuk has conducted 400 interviews with homeless people across every province and territory.
This qualitative research makes the quantitative data they’re pulling from the healthcare system make more sense.
“Qualitative data gives us rich contextual information to better understand the issues. People within our sample… frequently discussed the issue of their ‘friend that died last week.’ This gave us direction to look at issues such as opioid deaths,” Forchuk said.
The full results are still pending, but one thing they discovered from these interviews is that 16 per cent of interviewees experienced their first episode of homelessness during the pandemic. There is other evidence to suggest that Canada’s homeless population has been increasing since the pandemic.
Once a year since 2005, the city of Vancouver conducts a point-in-time homelessness count, during which volunteers and researchers roam the streets with clipboards and take down names. The 2023 count found 4,821 homeless people, a 32 per cent increase since 2020.
But point-in-time studies have their own limitations.
“[T]hose who are not currently accessing services or are not easily found will most likely be excluded,” said the Homelessness Services Association of BC, the organization which prepared the report.
Traveling across Canada for her new study, Forchuk has found rural data to be largely inaccessible. The most common way that small communities track homelessness is with a spreadsheet that isn’t shared with other researchers.
“Smaller, more rural/more remote communities often do not have [data] on their homelessness programs. Without data they cannot argue for homeless-serving agencies — a circular problem.”
There can only be one reason for no data on homeless populations in Canada more recent than 2014… Deliberate omission.