July 21, 2015

Early release of the COH Point-in-Time Count Toolkit

COH's PiT Count ToolkitThe Canadian Observatory on Homelessness has launched an early release of its Point-in-Time Count Toolkit. The Toolkit – supported, in part, by the Government of Canada’s Homelessness Partnering Strategy (Employment and Social Development Canada) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada – coincides with an exciting and timely announcement from the Homelessness Partnering Strategy (HPS).

The HPS will support designated communities to participate in a Coordinated PiT Count in the first sixty days of 2016. The HPS Coordinated Count is a significant opportunity to work towards a national picture of homelessness in Canada.

Our Toolkit – building on the work of the National Homeless Count Research Advisory Team – provides communities with the information and the resources they need to participate.

What is a PiT Count?

There are many ways to conduct a PiT Count; communities across Canada have developed their own approaches. But most simply, a PiT Count is a strategy to count the number of individuals experiencing homelessness at a single point in time.

Over a single point in time – usually a night – communities deploy volunteers to the street to locate, and survey, individuals who are experiencing homelessness. During that same period, volunteers are deployed to shelters, and other overnight facilities, to count and survey those that are staying the night.

At the end of the PiT Count, communities have two types of information: first, estimates of the number of people that are sleeping outside and in shelters; second, information about those that were surveyed. This includes information such as gender, age, veteran status, length of homelessness and service use.

What are the benefits?

Point-in-Time Counts allow communities to better understand the nature and extent of homelessness and the characteristics of the homeless population. PiT Counts support better planning, and when done on more than one occasion, allow communities to assess their progress in reducing, and ultimately ending, homelessness. 

PiT Counts are not new to Canada; many communities across the country have conducted at least one. These communities have used their PiT Count data to establish baselines of homelessness, monitor progress over time and develop community-wide plans to end homelessness; the local benefits of PiT Counts are proven.   

However, the benefits of PiT Counts are not easily realized at a provincial, territorial or national level. Communities use different approaches; consequently, PiT Count data is difficult to aggregate. There is a growing recognition that provincial, territorial and national coordination is required to end homelessness; however, we need accurate data to inform the effort.

In 2016, this will be the first effort to coordinate PiT counts in communities across Canada. It builds on the work done by Alberta’s 7 Cities on Housing and Homelessness, which conducted a coordinated PiT Count with aligned methodologies in 2014. As a result, they have the first-ever combined baseline of homelessness across the 7 Cities. 

The purpose of the COH PiT Count Toolkit

The COH PiT Count Toolkit is designed to support communities participating in the 2016 Coordinated Count to plan, implement and learn from their PiT Counts. An important goal of the Toolkit is to encourage alignment across communities. The COH Toolkit provides a set of resources to help you adapt the common approach to your local needs and circumstances.

Over the next few months, we will continue to update the PiT Count Toolkit. Refer to the Toolkit Release Schedule for a full list of forthcoming resources. If you would like to be notified when new tools and templates are added, you can subscribe to updates here

In the meantime, the COH is here to help. The PiT Count Toolkit and the HPS Guide to Point-in-Time Counts in Canada contain more than enough information to get started but communities are encouraged to contact me, COH PiT Count Coordinator for information and guidance.

Disclaimer
The analysis and interpretations contained in these blog posts are those of the individual contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness.