An estimated 1,400 people are staying in emergency shelters on an average night in Calgary, a report from the University of Calgary released Wednesday suggests.
The report, titled Social Policy Trends: The many shades of homelessness. It is not a one-size-fit-all approach to ending it, analyzed data from the last province-wide point-in-time count on homelessness conducted on April 11, 2018.
The university’s School of Public Policy said the data does not account for people who will not have physical shelter, nor does it account for those who are precariously housed.
“Most people think the only people who are homeless are the people you see on the streets; they are not. Most people need to understand that the number of people homeless today are not going to be the same people who were homeless the day before,” said Ron Kneebone, director of economic and social policy research in the School of Public Policy.
The report also suggests that more than 1,400 people were provisionally housed in Calgary that night.
Provisionally housed people are those who are staying in institutions or living with others but don’t have immediate prospects for housing if they are required or asked to leave, according to a definition by the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. This can include people who are in jail, hospitalized or couch-surfing.
“The justice system needs to do a better job at coordinating with the homeless system to make sure these people are provided with some sort of housing or at least directed towards a service where they don’t have to end up on the street,” said Kneebone.
Kneebone also reported that one-quarter of Albertans who are emergency sheltered are in Edmonton, suggesting that reasons for homelessness vary by community. Even though Edmonton is similar in size to Calgary, it has fewer people in homeless shelters because housing there is cheaper, he said.
“Most people experiencing homelessness are poor, and the amount of income they have is small relative to the cost of housing where they live.
“lot of the conditions that lead to homelessness are very local in character.”
This means that solutions to homelessness also need to be localized.
“There is no national solution. There is no provincial solution. The solutions to homelessness are much more local in nature, and all levels of government have a role to play in dealing with it.
“We need to light a fire under politicians to get them to act,” said Kneebone.