This document has been developed by the Alberta Rural Development Network (ARDN) to provide a step-by-step guide to estimate homelessness in rural communities in Canada. This guide incorporates cost-conscious, efficient, and reliable practices specific to rural communities and their surrounding areas.

Homelessness is often hidden in rural communities and rarely looks like it does in urban centres. Consequently, rural communities are often met with disbelief when they try to address the homelessness issue. This skepticism is the underlying motivation to develop an effective and inexpensive practice to collect data and identify the scope of homelessness in Canada’s rural communities.