Who is experiencing homelessness in Canada?
35,000 Canadians are homeless on a given night.
At least 235,000 Canadians experience homelessness in a year. o 27% are women o 19% are youth
The number of adults 55+ years old experiencing homelessness is rising—a combined 24% of shelter users. o 28-34% of the shelter population is Indigenous. o Indigenous people are overrepresented amongst the homeless population in virtually all urban centers in Canada.
In addition to the visibly homeless, 450,000 – 900,000 Canadians represent the ‘hidden’ homeless.
Hidden homelessness is defined as people who live “temporarily with others but without guarantee of continued residency or immediate prospects for accessing permanent housing.” o This describes people staying with relatives, friends, neighbours or strangers because they have no other option.
Those who reported an Indigenous identity were more than twice as likely (18%) to have experienced hidden homelessness as their non-Indigenous counterparts (8%).
50% of all tenants surveyed had stayed at someone else’s place because they had no home of their own.
43% had left their home because it wasn’t safe for them.
31% had spent time at a shelter.
24% had slept outside, or in a place not meant for human habitation
Although the causes of homelessness are many, economic hardship and lack of affordable housing are the two leading causes of homelessness.
local unsheltered people were experiencing one or more of the following conditions: having a chronic illness, substance abuse disorder, serious mental health issue, and/or suffering from domestic violence.
- 1 in 8 Americans witnessed their mother being beaten or hit
- 1 in 5 Americans was sexually molested as a child
- 1 in 4 Americans was beaten by a parent as a child, to the point of a mark being left on their body
- 1 in 4 Americans grew up with alcoholic relatives
- 1 in 3 American couples engage in physical violence
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