Last week we released a new paper, entitled What Work and For Whom? A Framework for Promising Practices. While there has been an increase in the amount of academic research on the causes of homelessness, there is a lack of research on effective and practical interventions for communities. With this in mind, the Canadian Homelessness Research Network has created a framework to identify and share practices that support communities in the development of effective programmatic solutions to homelessness. This report goes into what kind of programs work, why they work and for which groups do they work for.

The infographic of the week tail-ended our new paper. Borrowing from the Victoria Cool Aid Society case study, the infographic depicted the over-capacity shelter situation in the city while illustrating seasonal fluctuations in occupancy.

The housing problem in Ontario is getting more and more pressing. Indicative of this is the skyrocketing waiting lists for affordable housing which currently tally up to 158,445 households. The Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association released a report on their initial survey which was geared towards finding out how many people were waiting for housing. The report goes into a few looming trends such as ageing that contribute to a need for more affordable housing options.

In observing Remembrance Day last week we took the time to look at some of the recent research done on homeless veterans and the challenges they face in Canada and the U.S. First we looked at a fact sheet on surging homelessness rates among female veterans in the U.S. As compared with their non-veteran peers they are up to four times more likely to experience homelessness. Secondly, we looked at a Canadian government report on surveys done with homeless veterans. It detailed the path that veterans take from the Armed Forces to homelessness while identifying re-occurring themes of alcoholism and trauma. The report also outlined some recommendations from the veterans interviewed to the Department of National Defence and Veterans Affairs Canada.

In marking November as the National Homeless Youth Awareness Month the National Alliance to End Homelessness has put forth a series of blog posts on what we know about ending homelessness for young people. Their latest post goes into what we know about youth experiencing homelessness and how they interact with their family members, sex partners, and housed as well as homeless peers.

Lastly, we are collecting job descriptions from the homelessness and housing sectors throughout Canada. We want to create a one-stop shopping spot on the Homeless Hub for folks to find job descriptions that would be useful for their own organization or agency. We would also like to have information on any job descriptions in the health and harm reduction sectors as well as fellow researchers that work with the homeless population. If you're interested, please submit your job description to thehub@edu.yorku.ca.