Experts from around the globe are gathering in Toronto for Canada’s first national conference on preventing youth homelessness to highlight real-life research and programs that are making a difference. Stephen Gaetz, a professor at �첥��Ƶ and president of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, who is one of the conference chairs, talks about the importance of the conference.
on CBC News radio.

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Over three days, we’ll bring together researchers, service providers, lived experts, advocates, and thought leaders from Canada and abroad to mobilize cutting-edge research on prevention and innovative developments in policy and practice. The conference will offer a unique opportunity to learn from research that showcases evidence-based solutions to youth homelessness.

This conference is presented by  and the  as the summation of their Making the Shift Networks of Centres of Excellence grant.

Visit the for full details

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Article reposted from the

is a professor in the Faculty of Education at �첥��Ƶ. He is the president of the , the largest national research institute devoted to homelessness in Canada, and the , a web-based research library and information centre for mobilizing knowledge on homelessness. A member of the , Gaetz has spent decades bringing together researchers, grassroots organizations and policy makers nationally and internationally to contribute to the knowledge base around homelessness prevention. We spoke to Gaetz about the state of homelessness in Canada, his , and the role of prevention in finding a solution to homelessness in Canada.

What is the homelessness situation in Canada?

GAETZ: It’s getting worse. The latest Government of Canada data from 2022 shows a 20 percent increase in homelessness across the country. People are living on streets, in parks, in shelters, in tents and on couches throughout this country. Indigenous Peoples make up about a third of all people who are homeless in Canada. Black and 2SLGBTQIA+ youth are overrepresented as well in homeless shelters. We need to look at our policies around homelessness and prevention and ask ourselves: Are the policies tailored to reflect these vulnerable populations?

Why have we seen such a rise in homelessness across the country?

GAETZ: We created the problem. In the 1980’s the federal government was paying to build up to 25,000 units of social housing and co-ops every year. They stopped doing that, in hopes the private sector would step in and fill the void, but that �徱���’t happen. We’ve lost 30 years of investment and that’s a lot of housing that �徱���’t get built. Add to that, the private sector investment in rental housing has tanked as construction companies have decided to focus on building big homes and luxury condominiums. Canada is now in a critical crisis around, not just affordable, but deeply affordable housing. Rents are at an all-time high. At the same time, the population of Canada has grown by 30 percent, to [as of October 1, 2023, representing the highest population growth rate since 1957], we have less stable employment with fewer benefits, we’ve seen massive job losses through the pandemic, and are left now with more low-paying precarious jobs. All of those things have led to this emergence of ‘modern mass homelessness’.

What makes your work with the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and the Homeless Hub stand out in Canada and internationally?

GAETZ: Our mission with the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and the Homeless Hub is prevention. We’ve developed to start a nationwide conversation around prevention. By developing a strong knowledge base, we can help inform communities and governments to shape policy around the prevention of homelessness.

What do you mean by prevention of homelessness?

GAETZ: We see prevention as a human rights issue. Our definition adapts the public health model of prevention, including Primary Prevention, meaning stopping people from becoming homeless in the first place; Secondary Prevention— ensuring that those who do become homeless don’t transition to long-term or chronic homelessness, and Tertiary Prevention, which means supporting people who have exited this situation to not return to homelessness. In practical terms, it means looking at all the things, from expanding the affordable housing supply, to reducing tenant evictions, to strengthening families, providing better supports for physical and mental health, and school-based early intervention to help youth avoid becoming homelessness. We need to address and stop homelessness before it starts.

How do we make prevention the basis for homelessness policies in Canada?

GAETZ: We need municipal, provincial and federal governments and all government departments to come together and take one unified approach to preventing homelessness. We can’t just rely on the department responsible for housing or community services to have policies around homelessness. We need to look at issues around child protection as a gateway to homelessness. What happens when a person is discharged from prison or the hospital? Do they have a place to go? Through our , we know the key ages when people enter homelessness are between 12 and 20 years old. If we were to focus on the prevention of youth homelessness it would have a huge impact on chronic homelessness across the country.

What impact has your research had in Canada?

GAETZ: My goal is to make research matter to all those involved, including policy makers. Our research teams who are part of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and the Homeless Hub are now leaders in the idea of prevention. We’ve developed the that helps policy makers guide support for homelessness prevention. Thanks to funding through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) we’ve created , which supports research projects that focus on the prevention of youth homelessness. Because of our research, governments and our partners are now understanding the role prevention plays in addressing homelessness. That is huge. We have led the shift from crisis response to prevention and now have outcomes that show early interventions work to reduce homelessness, like our intervention model that has proved if we can find youth a safe place to live before addressing any other issues in their life, they will have a much higher chance of reaching their goals and exiting homelessness for good.

Do you have the ear of governments?

GAETZ: Yes, but it will take time before the listening turns to action.

What can Canada learn from other countries?

GAETZ: From Australia, we can learn that if you want to prevent youth homelessness then you have to work in collaboration with schools. Unlike Canada, the Scandinavian countries continued to build social housing so they have a robust supply which directly relates to lower incidents of homelessness in those countries. One of my favourite examples is in Wales where they have developed that requires local authorities to intervene at the first sign of someone at risk of homelessness. Canada invented the Housing First for Youth intervention model but, ironically, it’s taking off in Europe more than it is here.

If you could enact one piece of legislation or policy in Canada right now, what would it be?

GAETZ: I would make prevention of homelessness the core of every policy and strategy at all levels of government. A by McGill economist Eric Latimer determined it costs on average $59,000 a year to keep someone in a state of homelessness in Canada. So, we ask, what can you do with $59,000? You could certainly think about renting a place and paying for much needed health and social supports. Instead, as a country we think, ‘it’s too bad, it’s a crisis and emergency shelters are the best we can do’. The reality is that’s a super expensive way to deal with a problem that does not produce great outcomes. We need to get creative, be bold, be proactive, and invest in prevention and helping people exit homelessness in a sustainable way.

What role does advocacy play in research?

GAETZ: Research is rarely the thing that will be the big motivator of political change and investment, but we need to use knowledge mobilization to engage governments and community partners to influence policy on a larger scale and advocate for change. Our Homeless Hub is the largest research library on homelessness in the world. If we can present evidence-based knowledge in clear language with practical applications, we believe we can drive solutions to homelessness in Canada and abroad.

Why do you do what you do?

GAETZ: I think it’s a travesty that we allow homelessness to continue and to grow in a country like Canada. It’s a travesty that we make people wait until they are homeless before we can help them. It’s like people walking into a hospital and saying to them, ‘We’re not going to help you, come back in a couple of years when you’re really sick, and then we’ll help you.’ We know from research that prolonged exposure to homelessness damages lives. We can do better. We must do better before we lose more Canadians to this crisis.

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The upcoming Black Youth Housing Project, associated with the Homeless Hub at �첥��Ƶ’s Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, will explore what housing models best support Black youth who are experiencing homelessness in York region.

The project is led by 360°kids, a non-profit organization that works to prevent homelessness by helping youth at risk, or in crisis, transition to a state of safety and stability. Among those working on the project are Nathan Okonta, a �첥��Ƶ alum and a research associate at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, as well as Promise Busulwa, a communications co-ordinator at the observatory.

While research on homelessness in Black communities is limited, the available data shows that Black youth are overrepresented in populations experiencing homelessness. The Black Youth Housing Project looks to address, through research and action, a means to deliver a transitional housing model that could transform the lives of Black youth. It aims to provide five key benefits for communities working to address this particular crisis:

1. understanding the needs and challenges of youth who are currently experiencing or have previously experienced homelessness;
2. identifying pathways or conditions associated with homelessness;
3. informing the development of a youth housing model with cultural and age-appropriate services;
4. informing the development of preventative measures to support youth at risk of homelessness; and
5. promoting high-quality research to fill in gaps in the current literature around Black youth homelessness in Canada. 

Its goals are to better understand how to provide culturally relevant services to Black youth experiencing homelessness. It also seeks to inform the development of a long-term transitional home, for which 360°kids has already secured a site, expected to be operational in 2024. 

The upcoming Black Youth Housing Project, associated with the Homeless Hub at �첥��Ƶ’s Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, will explore what housing models best support Black youth who are experiencing homelessness in York region.

The project is led by 360°kids, a non-profit organization that works to prevent homelessness by helping youth at risk, or in crisis, transition to a state of safety and stability. Among those working on the project are Nathan Okonta, a �첥��Ƶ alum and a research associate at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, as well as Promise Busulwa, a communications co-ordinator at the observatory.

While research on homelessness in Black communities is limited, the available data shows that Black youth are overrepresented in populations experiencing homelessness. The Black Youth Housing Project looks to address, through research and action, a means to deliver a transitional housing model that could transform the lives of Black youth. It aims to provide five key benefits for communities working to address this particular crisis:

1. understanding the needs and challenges of youth who are currently experiencing or have previously experienced homelessness;
2. identifying pathways or conditions associated with homelessness;
3. informing the development of a youth housing model with cultural and age-appropriate services;
4. informing the development of preventative measures to support youth at risk of homelessness; and
5. promoting high-quality research to fill in gaps in the current literature around Black youth homelessness in Canada. 

Its goals are to better understand how to provide culturally relevant services to Black youth experiencing homelessness. It also seeks to inform the development of a long-term transitional home, for which 360°kids has already secured a site, expected to be operational in 2024. 

The project is currently recruiting African, Caribbean and/or Black youth aged 16 to 34 who have experienced homelessness or housing insecurity in the Greater Toronto Area within the past five years. Participants will be invited to an online or in-person interview or focus group. All participants will be compensated for their time, and participation in research is entirely voluntary. Those interested can reach out to the project’s principal investigator, Neil Price, at .

Article published in the December 20, 2023 issue of

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On Nov. 21, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., the Faculty of Education Public Research Series will feature Stephen Gaetz, a Faculty professor and �첥��Ƶ Research Chair in Homelessness and Research Impact, who will explore the role social innovation can have in inspiring change in the response to youth homelessness in Canada.

Titled “Making Research Matter: Mobilizing research to impact on homelessness policy,” Gaetz’s talk will discuss the latest results from the work of Making the Shift – Youth Homelessness Social Innovation Lab (MtS), a partnership between the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and A Way Home Canada. He will argue that while MtS has developed a solid evidence base for the prevention of youth homelessness, the production of quality research alone is not enough to produce the change needed.

Gaetz’s lecture will further discuss the knowledge mobilization strategies required to help engage service providers and all orders of government to inform, change minds, and contribute to a change in how to think about and respond to this seemingly intractable problem.

The lecture is an extension of Gaetz’s long-standing interest in understanding homelessness – its causes, how it is experienced and potential solutions. His program of research has been defined by his desire to “make research matter” through conducting and mobilizing rigorous scholarly research that contributes not only to a shared knowledge base on homelessness but to solutions that impact policy, practice and public opinion.

In 2017, he was named a member of the Order of Canada for his ongoing work.

Those who wish to register for the event, which will be held in the Nick Mirkopolous Screening Room in the Accolade East Building on York’s Keele Campus, can do so here: .

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 (MtS), a youth homelessness social innovation lab co-led by the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness at �첥��Ƶ, is seeking proposals from researchers and community organizations (that can hold ) for one-time grants.

For full details, including French-language application materials, visit .

Research projects should contribute to MtS’s of policy and service enhancements that prevent youth homelessness in Canada. Youth homelessness prevention is defined in .

Applications must respond to one of the following funding streams and be submitted by the deadline date of Feb. 28 at 5 p.m. EST:

• Youth-Focused Harm Reduction
• Legal and Justice Issues
• Cost-Benefit Analysis
• Evictions Prevention
• Data and Technology: Understanding the Role of Linked Administrative Data in Preventing Youth Homelessness
• Pathways into Homelessness
• Open Prevention Topic

Who can apply?

Individuals or institutions can apply. Applicants must be affiliated with a Canadian post-secondary academic institution. Principal investigators must be tenure-stream faculty or adjunct faculty members.

Not-for-profit organizations can apply for funding, provided they meet Tri-Council requirements and submit the supporting documentation, including affiliation with an academic institution. Indigenous not-for-profit organizations wanting to administer the grant funds should apply for institutional eligibility.

Funding amount and duration

MtS will fund between $50,000 and $250,000 per project. Successful projects will receive funds approximately mid-August 2022. Projects should anticipate starting on Sept. 1, 2022. Project activities must be completed by Dec. 24, 2024.

How to apply

Step 1: Download the application guide to determine if your proposal is eligible, and to learn more about how to submit your proposal.

Step 2: Prepare your application and complete the Making the Shift budget template.

Step 3: and submit your application through the Making the Shift submission portal. 

Both English and French applications are encouraged. MtS application documents translated into French were posted on Feb. 2.

Do you have questions? Contact the Making the Shift funding team at mtsfunding@yorku.ca for questions regarding your proposal or the submission process.

Learn more about current funded MtS projects

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We are pleased to announce that the  has established the Toronto Centre of Excellence (TCE) on Youth Homelessness Prevention at �첥��Ƶ. More than three years in the making, we couldn’t be more honoured to represent Canada across the UNECE’s Member States.

Hosted by �첥��Ƶ and co-led by the ,  and our , the TCE presents an important opportunity to work internationally to contribute to the transformation of how we respond to and prevent youth homelessness.

The TCE is part of a broader network of Centres of Excellence under the coordination of the UNECE with a mandate to engage in the exchange of research knowledge, experience and best practices to support the implementation of the . Currently, there are Charter Centres in Estonia, Scotland, Albania, and Norway, with additional Charter Centres launching in Switzerland, Italy, and Spain.

Through engaged international research, the TCE provides opportunities to assess the state of youth homelessness and prevention in the UNECE’s 56 member states. It will also endeavour to get youth homelessness and homelessness prevention on government policy agendas, catalyzing change and improved well-being and housing outcomes for youth and their families. The TCE allows us to leverage the training resources we’ve been developing in Canada on prevention and sustained exits for adaptation in other jurisdictions. The TCE then becomes an international megaphone for the important work we’ve been leading through our Making the Shift Youth Homelessness Social Innovation Lab, including our Demonstration Projects on models of prevention and Housing First for Youth.

The importance of international engagement cannot be stressed enough. For both of us, the new ways of thinking about and responding to homelessness that we’ve seen in different countries have led to meaningful and paradigm-shifting understandings of what to do, when and why. Learning about the Geelong project and Youth Reconnect in Australia nearly ten years ago led us to reconsider the role of prevention. While prevention has NOT been a priority in North America (though that is changing in Canada), when modern mass homelessness emerged in Australia, their response was not to build more shelters for youth, but rather work to prevent homelessness from occurring in the first place through school-based early intervention. More recently, human rights-based homelessness legislation in Wales (2014) paved the way for a preventive approach that we refer to as “Duty to Assist”, whereby local authorities are required to take reasonable steps to prevent or end a person’s homelessness, and have recourse to a wide range of mechanisms of assistance. People who do not have their right to housing fulfilled can challenge this in court. This is what the future of homelessness prevention should look like.

Our international exchanges are also bi-directional. , a Canadian adaptation intended to design a Housing First intervention that meets the needs of developing adolescents and young adults, has gained traction in many countries in Europe, at a rate that is perhaps even faster than in Canada. Our international relations have paid big dividends, and we hope to open up opportunities for even more international engagement involving more partners from Canada and abroad.  

The sharing of knowledge internationally will be better enabled with the establishment of the Toronto Centre of Excellence. The Centre provides a container for such activities and mechanisms to catalyze our focus on prevention and youth homelessness internationally. The designation will enable us to leverage funds to expand the critically important opportunities for international engagement, co-production of research and other activities. This will enhance the quality and impact of the knowledge generated through Making the Shift in Canada and the entire UNECE region.

Over the coming months, we’ll be working to implement our first year’s work plan for the Charter Centre, including hosting a virtual conference on Housing First for Youth with UNECE Member States. We’ll also be exploring options for membership models for the Charter Centre. We want to thank �첥��Ƶ and the Faculty of Education for all of their support to realize the Toronto Centre of Excellence.

Article originally published on the on June 16, 2021.

Authors:
, Faculty of Education Professor and CEO & President, Canadian Observatory on Homelessness
, CEO and PresidentA Way Home Canada

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Titled "Child Welfare and Youth Homelessness Prevention in Canada," the webinar will examine pandemic responses to homelessness across the nation. In response to the pandemic, some provinces and territories have placed temporary moratoriums on transitions from care. These measures have opened up opportunities to rethink what transitions should look like for youth moving forward. Youth who have had some type of involvement with child protection services over their lifetime are at increased risk of experiencing homelessness, and advocates have long argued more needs to be done to support young people during these times of transition.

Drawing upon emerging research and perspectives from the frontlines, attendees will learn about the long-term solutions that are needed to support youth when transitioning from care, ensuring no young person is prematurely forced out of care. The question that will be addressed is: How can we build on some of the recent promising developments to collectively rethink our approach to child protection?

Join Melanie Doucet, PhD social work and MtS Scholar with Lived Experience, senior researcher and project manager at the Child Welfare League of Canada and researcher with the Centre for Research on Children and Families at McGill University; Michael Ungar, founder and director of the Resilience Research Centre and Canada Research Chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience; and David French, managing director of A Way Home Canada, in a rich discussion on how to stop the pipeline of young people from the child welfare system into homelessness through focusing on well-being instead of keeping young people in survival mode.

To register for this Zoom event, visit .

Audience members will also learn about the innovative research and knowledge mobilization work of Making the Shift at �첥��Ƶ, a youth homelessness social innovation lab with a mandate to make the shift from managing the crises of youth homelessness to a focus on prevention and housing stabilization.

Making the Shift is a Network of Centres of Excellence at �첥��Ƶ, under the co-leadership of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (�첥��Ƶ).

Article from the May 25, 2021 issue of .

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Welcome to the November 2020 issue of Innovatus, a special issue of YFile that is devoted to teaching and learning innovation at �첥��Ƶ.

This issue of Innovatus focuses on teaching, learning and the student experience in the Faculty of Education. I am so pleased by the rich variety of stories offered in this issue because they showcase the expansive depth of the Faculty's approach to the "act of education" to quote Interim Dean Sharon Murphy.

Education is universal and the Faculty's work with refugees in the Dadaab Refugee Complex in Kenya, homeless youth and in re-envisioning early childhood education are displayed among the fine stories offered in this issue. As well, Dean Murphy's letter is a testament to the Faculty's commitment to excellence, and the story highlighting the innovation shown in moving the Faculty of Education's Summer Institute online and transforming it to a year-long effort is amazing. Encore!

Thank you again for the many wonderful comments about our September and October issues. I value each of your responses. Please continue to contact me with your ideas, classroom innovations and thoughts about teaching, learning and the student experience.

As I close, the snow is starting to fly and with it, the holidays are approaching. I would like to take a moment to wish each of you good health and happiness at home, which is especially important this year.

Featured in the November 2020 issue of Innovatus

In her letter to the community, Interim Dean Sharon Murphy writes about how the Faculty of Education is constantly working to enliven new visions of education and society, visions of possibility, equity and social justice. "Our work focuses not only inward on curriculum and pedagogy, but very much looks outward towards the idea of education being situated within a complex and seemingly evermore fragile world."

One of �첥��Ƶ's hallowed traditions, the Faculty of Education Summer Institute (FESI), may have bowed to COVID-19 in terms of format, but it is unbowed in terms of mission and content. For 2020-2021, the institute has morphed into a series of five free webinars titled Up Close and Personal: Conversations on Anti-Oppression.

Stephen Gaetz, the �첥��Ƶ Research Chair in Homelessness and Research Impact and a professor in the Faculty of Education, is using his excellent research and communications skills and grant-writing ability to attack the challenges within youth homelessness, which need broad solutions and a meeting of many perspectives.

Rachel Silver, an assistant professor of education at York, with the help of a team of her colleagues in both Toronto and Dadaab, has created a virtual colloquium series, Reciprocal Learning in Times of Crisis, for the Faculty's Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) program. The series considers the issues arising from the confluence of education, the COVID-19 pandemic and new waves of resistance to anti-Black racism.

Lucy Angus and Cristina Delgado Vintimilla, assistant professors new to York and the Faculty of Education, have created a lecture series titled Disrupting Early Childhood: Inheritance, Pedagogy, Curriculum to explore new ideas about early childhood education (ECE) and create a space to bring together the innovative research conversations that are changing the field of ECE.

Innovatus is produced by the Office of the Associate Vice-President Teaching & Learning in partnership with Communications & Public Affairs.

I extend a personal invitation to you to share your experiences in teaching, learning, internationalization and the student experience through the Innovatus story form, which is available at .

Will Gage
Associate Vice-President, Teaching & Learning

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The  (MtS) has made big strides towards its mission to transform Canada’s response to youth homelessness. In their latest impact report, MtS highlights some of the projects that kicked off this year, and how the projects are contributing to the prevention of youth homelessness in Canada.

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