No one should be homeless in a country with Canada’s resources. Yet, across the country, we are witnessing dramatic increases in the number of people with no place to call home.

Homelessness – simply defined – is the absence of a place to live. A person who has no regular place to live stays in an overnight emergency shelter, an abandoned building, an all-night coffee shop or theatre, a car, outdoors, or other such places not meant to be living spaces.

In the early 1980s, it became obvious that there was an increasing number of individuals and families, in the wealthiest nations, who had no place of their own to live and did not have enough money to pay for life’s necessities. They once had housing. They once had enough money to get by on. They once had a support network of family and friends in combination with a public “social safety net.”

The person you see on the street is just the tip of the iceberg.The long-term or “chronically” homeless person – the individuals we tend to see on our streets – represent less than 20% of the homeless population. The rest are families and individuals who find themselves without a place to live for a period of time.

Download factsheets from our Resources section to help you identify the warning signs for homelessness, learn about solutions that work, and the practical things you can do to help combat homelessness in your community.

The tens of thousands of homeless Canadians are a diverse mix of young and old, families with children, couples and single people. Families with children are the fastest growing group. And, about a third of homeless people are living with some form of mental health problem.
Both the numbers of such people and the length of time they are homeless are increasing dramatically.

The reasons why people become homeless are complex. The basic cause is poverty. The underlying causes can include poor physical or mental health, violence or abuse in the home, lack of employment or an income, and a shortage of affordable housing in the community. No one chooses to be homeless and it can happen to anyone – from a teenager escaping an abusive care giver, to a senior citizen on a fixed income facing a rent or tax increase, to a child whose parents suddenly become unemployed. Today, the spiral from stability to distress can happen in the space of a five-minute meeting.

All homeless people have one thing in common – a lack of housing.
While homelessness is not just a housing problem, it is always a housing problem. For many households there is a large gap between the cost of housing and the money available to pay for housing.

Homelessness has escalated exponentially since federal and provincial governments have stopped funding social housing construction. In more cities, homelessness is also directly related to low vacancy rates. Tight or heated housing markets make it hard for anyone to find housing. For individuals or families trying to live on minimum wage, a basic pension or other fixed incomes, it is especially difficult – even in “normal” times.