Social Policy Trends: Where is the Risk of Homelessness the Greatest?

Many determinants of homelessness are community dependent. Someone at high risk of homelessness in one community may not be in another. 

The risk of homelessness is due to both personal and external factors. Substance abuse, mental health challenges and poverty raise the risk of homelessness. But tight rental markets, challenging labour conditions, inadequate and unresponsive income supports also raise the likelihood further. As shown in previous research, this makes homelessness sensitive to local conditions and local policies. 

In this Policy Trend, the authors use the Homelessness Income Cut Off (HICO), a method of measuring the minimum income an individual or family requires to avoid homelessness, to examine communities across Canada along with different family compositions: singles, lone parents, couples and couples with children, to assess where the risk of homelessness is greatest.