MtS Funded ProjectsOutputs
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| Homeless Shelter Use by Age and Community with Implications for the Cost of Maintaining City-Wide Systems of Emergency Shelters: A Comparison of Calgary and TorontoThis paper uses administrative data from Calgary and Toronto to derive estimates of the cost of maintaining a community-wide system of homeless shelters. We show these costs differ for youth, adults, families, and community. The cost of maintaining emergency shelter beds to assist youth as they struggle to establish or reestablish housing is small both in dollar terms and relative to the cost suffered by youth unable to access temporary shelter. P16 University of Calgary | Publication | 2024-11-18 | | | How do Youth Use Homeless Shelters?This paper uses a large administrative dataset providing 105,149 daily observations on 3,176 youth aged between 18 and 24 years using emergency homeless shelters from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2019, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Using k-mean cluster analysis we classify youth who use emergency homeless shelters by their intensity of shelter use. In Calgary, most youth use homeless shelters as a temporary and infrequent refuge when housing is lost. For these youth, shelters are an effective and relatively inexpensive approach for helping them resolve their homelessness. A significant number, however, rely on shelters for much longer stays. For these youth, shelters are ineffective and expensive responses to their homelessness. To understand how youth are changing their use of shelters over time, we introduce time series measuring first admissions and readmissions to shelters. We show that how youth use shelters, and how that use has changed over time, differs for youth who self-identify as Indigenous, Caucasian and visible minority.P16 University of Calgary | Publication | 2021-04-03 | | | Emergency Homeless Shelter Flows by Age and Ethnicity and their Sensitivity to Rent in Calgary, Alberta, CanadaAn under-appreciated characteristic of sheltered homelessness is its dynamic nature. People in an emergency shelter today may be unsheltered or provisionally housed tomorrow. Those occupying a shelter bed may be returning to shelter after a period away, while others are staying in shelter for the first time. In this paper we use daily data on sheltered homelessness in Calgary to identify the number of people using a shelter for the first time (new admissions) and the number of those returning to shelter after an earlier stay (readmissions). Providing estimates of these measures is useful because many policies aimed at addressing homelessness are directed toward slowing new admissions (shelter diversion policies, for example) or speeding exits from shelters (Housing First programs, for example). Measuring the effectiveness of these programs is best done by showing how effective they are at influencing the flow of people into or out of homelessness that they are designed to address. We use our estimates to show how new admissions into shelters differ from readmissions in their sensitivity to housing costs. Results are shown for single adults and youth with each also broken down by ethnicity.P16 University of Calgary | Publication | 2024-11-18 | | | The Youth Housing Program Cost Calculator: Estimating the Cost to Communities of Housing Programs for YouthThe purpose of this background paper is to describe the calculations and assumptions that can be used by communities to derive estimates of the gross and net costs of housing programs aimed at reducing youth homelessness.P16 University of Calgary | Publication | 2024-11-18 | | | Youth in Calgary's Housing Programs: A Case StudyWe examine a housing program in a non-experimental setting and evaluate the housing success realized by youth over as much as seven years. In terms of both setting and time span of analysis, our evaluation is a departure from analyses of data drawn from controlled experiments of limited duration. In this paper, we examine the success of a housing program for youth that shares with the PHF model the philosophy of providing housing without preconditions but does not strictly adhere to all elements of that model’s program design. We employ administrative data sets describing the experiences of youth with a variety of personal characteristics, homeless experiences, and interactions with health and justice systems. We report the frequency of these interactions by youth chosen for housing programs and comment on the implications for the cost of housing programs meant to assist youth. P16 University of Calgary | Publication | 2024-11-18 | |
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