Alberta's 7 Cities on Housing and Homelessness are the lead organizations responsible for the implementation of local Plans to End Homelessness in Calgary, Edmonton, Wood Buffalo, Grand Prairie, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Red Deer. The 7 Cities coordinate local plans at a systems level and align funding resources for greater impact and progress toward ending homelessness.

On October 19, 2016, 7 Cities on Housing and Homelessness conducted the second Point-In-Time Homelessness Count. This count serves two important functions: it provides a current snapshot of our overall homeless population and enables us to examine how this population changes over time. By aligning methods across Alberta’s cities, we can examine trends using the same definitions. Ultimately, this helps us inform solutions to support the goal of ending homelessness in our communities.

In 2014, Alberta was the first jurisdiction to implement measures toward a more standardized methodology, leading the way in Canada. In collaboration with the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and federal government partners, there is now movement toward a harmonized approach to homeless counts nationally.