After years of investing in efforts to end homelessness, attention is shifting toward understanding which approaches work best to prevent it from occurring in the first place. Preventing youth homelessness is particularly important because of the high risk of violence and exploitation that youth experience while in shelters or rough sleeping. Youth who are experiencing homelessness are also at very high risk for continued and chronic homelessness into adulthood.
An intervention aimed at preventing youth homelessness, called shelter diversion, emerged in the youth sector in Canada several years ago. Diversion programs attempt to divert youth into alternate housing arrangements to avoid shelter stays. Program evaluation results from a small number of diversion programs showed promising results. According to this research, upwards of of youth could be diverted from emergency shelters when diversion approaches are implemented during a young person’s first interaction with a shelter.
Investigating the Effectiveness of Shelter Diversion Programs:
While shelter diversion is emerging and growing in communities across Canada, limited peer-reviewed research exists on its effectiveness, strengths and limitations. To address this gap, we led a three-year study with a Youth Advisory Committee of lived experts (YAC), two universities and five shelter diversion programs in Canada. The study explored both staff experiences running the program and youth experiences accessing diversion services. Our primary focus was to understand the barriers and facilitators of shelter diversion programs, and to explore what ‘successful diversion’ looks like.
We analyzed diversion data from two large youth-serving organizations and validated the assertion that upwards of 68% of youth can be diverted from shelter if they engage in diversion before they first contact an emergency shelter. Results from interviews with 30 staff and 47 youth identified diversion as a credible and important intervention. Youth also spoke very highly of their interactions with diversion staff and the services they received.
However, other results from the interviews showed inconsistencies in the definition and implementation of diversion, and differences in data being collected and used to demonstrate ‘success’. For example, many youth reported finding their own housing after a brief stay in a shelter, and others reported being quickly diverted back home because the shelter was full and there were no open beds.
Results also showed that for some youth, diversion actually caused harm when they returned to unsafe and unsupported environments. Several youth we spoke to had accessed diversion services multiple times, signalling that their housing placements were not stable and/or they had other unmet needs that were not being addressed. Importantly, youth from diverse communities—such as Black, Indigenous, racialized, 2SLGBTQIA+ (especially Trans* youth), and those with disabilities— had different needs, experiences and outcomes when accessing shelter diversion services.
Reframing Success: When and How Shelter Diversion Works Best:
Based on our data, we argue that instead of asking whether diversion is ‘successful’, we should ask: Is it appropriate for this youth, in this situation, at this time? If not, what other options are available, such as family reunification, eviction prevention and/or safe transitional housing with a clear plan for permanent housing?
We argue that diversion is a valuable intervention that can reduce the risks youth may face if they stay in shelter or engage in street homelessness, particularly when it leads to stable housing with no or limited need for additional services. While there are challenges associated with this program model, this should not discourage the implementation of shelter diversion practices. Rather, we should:
- Adopt common definitions of diversion and success
- Develop consistent and shared data collection to map youth movement across systems
- Embed diversion practices within a continuum of other options at shelter intake, as one tool among many
We suggest that diversion practices occur over 30 days to allow sufficient time to find safe and sustainable housing placements and to ensure we are not moving youth out too quickly without a comprehensive assessment of broader needs, community connections and referrals. We suggest at least 90 days of follow-up supports to stabilize the diversion activities and engage a Family and Natural Supports worker to support the family as a whole. Finally, diversion staff require highly specialized skills and experience to make these decisions while balancing the diverse lived experiences and social identities of youth, safety, choice, consent and self-determination.
We conclude that shelter diversion is a promising practice. Implementing the recommended changes, along with robust evaluative research, could support the development of guidelines and standards to allow effective implementation of the shelter diversion model. These, in turn, can be tested to assess impact. This is an important step towards determining whether, and in what ways, shelter diversion can be considered a best practice.
Disclaimer: Our team had limited success engaging with youth who had been diverted into stable housing. Staff also had limited interactions with these youth. Therefore, our findings primarily reflect the experiences of youth who were actively engaging in shelter diversion services, limiting what we can know about longitudinal outcomes, including couch surfing, hidden homelessness or accessing another shelter.