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is a professor in the Faculty of Education at 91��ɫ. 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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When Dr. Carolyn Snider arrives for her early morning emergency room shifts, she regularly sees between five and 10 people in the waiting area who don't need medical attention — just a safe place to stay warm.

There's been a significant increase in the number of homeless people taking refuge in downtown Toronto emergency departments over the last few winters, Snider said. She and colleagues did some research to see if they could quantify what they were seeing.

The resulting study, published on a pre-print website Tuesday, examined data that had been collected from hospitals across Ontario, documenting ER visits from the winter of 2018-19 through to last winter, ending March 31, 2023.

It found that non-urgent emergency department visits among people who are homeless increased by 24 per cent across the province over those five winters.

'We should prioritize getting people housed': expert

The study results don't surprise Stephen Gaetz, head of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness based at 91��ɫ.

Gaetz was not involved in the study but said "the results are to be trusted."

"One of the things we need to come to terms with in our response to homelessness is that if we do not provide people with access to adequate housing that is safe, affordable and appropriate, as well as necessary supports if they have health and or mental health challenges, then we shouldn't be surprised that people experiencing homelessness are going to make decisions that we may not like," Gaetz said in an email to The Canadian Press.

"If we don't like people experiencing homelessness going to emergency services at hospitals, sleeping in tents or in parks, or sleeping and keeping warm on the subway, then we should prioritize getting people housed," he said, noting that preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place is also important.

Read the full article on the CBC News' .

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Social innovation involves designing and testing new ways of addressing old problems. Dr. Stephen Gaetz explores the role of social innovation in inspiring change in how we respond to youth homelessness in Canada. The focus of this presentation will be on 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. While MtS has developed a solid evidence base for the prevention of youth homelessness, it is clear that the production of quality research alone is not enough to produce the change we want to see. Dr. Gaetz will discuss the knowledge mobilization strategies employed by MtS to help engage service providers and all orders of government to inform, change minds, and contribute to a change in how we think about, and respond to this seemingly intractable problem. For those interested in research impact, this is a compelling example of how to achieve it.

Dr. Stephen Gaetz is a professor in the Faculty of Education at 91��ɫ, in Toronto Canada. In 2021, he was named 91��ɫ Research Chair in Homelessness and Research Impact. As a scholar, Gaetz has had a 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 our knowledge base on homelessness but also to solutions to homelessness that impact on policy, practice and public opinion.

Dr. Gaetz is the President of the and the at 91��ɫ as well as the Scientific Director of . In 2017 he was awarded the Member of the Order of Canada. In 2021 and in partnership with A Way Home Canada, the collective body of work on youth homelessness prevention was designated by the United Nations as the .

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More than 40 research projects at 91��ɫ will receive a boost of $16 million in funding from the  (SSHRC), including close to $10 million in  for long-term research projects in anti-homelessness, global health, 2SLGBTQ+ poverty and Indigenous rights and reconciliation.

The funding was announced on June 16 by François-Philippe Champagne, the federal minister of innovation, science and industry, and is part of more than $175 million in SSHRC funding to support important research across Canada.

“91��ɫ has long been recognized as a leader in the humanities and social sciences, so we are gratified that SSHRC is recognizing and supporting the 91��ɫ researchers who have received funding through the Insight Grants and Partnership Development Grants, and for our graduate students who have also received support,” said Rhonda Lenton, president and vice-chancellor of 91��ɫ. “We are particularly delighted for all four of our researchers who received Partnership Grants, which will sustain urgent efforts to combat poverty and homelessness and to strengthen our global public health regime and the self-determination of Indigenous communities.”

The four Partnership Grant recipients, each of whom has received close to $2.5 million in support of six- and seven-year projects, are: 

• Stephen Gaetz, professor in the Faculty of Education, received a second consecutive Partnership Grant to continue his work as president and CEO of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH) – an anti-homelessness research institute previously funded by the SSHRC in 2012. 
• Steven Hoffman, professor of Global Health, Law, and Political Science at the Faculty of Health and  and the Dahdaleh Distinguished Chair in Global Governance & Legal Epidemiology, and director of the Global Strategy Lab, will pursue research into a global framework for sustainable antimicrobial drug use and preventing the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria.  
• Nick Mulé, professor of gender and sexuality at the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, will undertake a project called 2SLGBTQ+ Poverty in Canada: Improving Livelihood and Social Wellbeing. The initiative will address disproportionate vulnerability to poverty among Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer plus (2SLGBTQ+) people. 
• Dayna Scott, professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Environment & Urban Change, received funding for “Infrastructure Beyond Extractivism: Material Approaches to Restoring Indigenous Jurisdiction.” The project will explore novel approaches to strengthening Indigenous jurisdiction and sovereignty over hereditary lands and waterways.

The announcement also includes $5.2 million in  for 30 researcher projects across multiple Faculties, including the Faculty of Health, the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, the , the Faculty of Education, , the  and .

In addition, six 91��ɫ researchers received just over $1 million in funding under the  to foster new research and related activities with new or existing partners, and to design and test new partnership approaches.

 “I want to congratulate today’s award recipients and wish them success in their research endeavours. SSHRC’s investment in the social sciences and humanities at 91��ɫ affirms and validates our commitments to scholarship and knowledge-seeking and to building a more sustainable and equitable future,” said Amir Asif, vice-president research and innovation.

“This has been a remarkable year for 91��ɫ. To date, 91��ɫ has achieved record levels of research funding across all three tri-councils and has accomplished the highest ever funding in 91��ɫ’s history with a 100 per cent success rate in the Partnership Grants, Partnership Development Grants and SSHRC Connection Grants, as well as our most successful year in SSHRC Insight Grants. I attribute this success to the passion and dedication of our research community and staff who are so committed to helping 91��ɫ conduct purposeful research for positive change,” added Asif. 

A complete list of the SSHRC funding grants can be found .

Article originally published in the June 17, 2022 issue of

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