Filling in the gaps: examining the prevalence of Black homelessness in Canada

Filling in the gaps: examining the prevalence of Black homelessness in Canada Ashley Wilkinson, Khater Muhajir, Patricia Bailey-Brown, Alana Jones, Rebecca Schiff Housing, Care and Support, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, pp.- Due to ongoing inequities in the social determinants of health and systemic barriers, homelessness continues to be a significant concern that disproportionately impacts racialized communities. Despite constituting a small proportion of the population, Black individuals are over-represented among people experiencing homelessness in many Canadian cities. However, although Black homelessness in Canada is a pressing issue, it has received limited attention in the academic literature. The purpose of this paper is to examine the reported prevalence of Black homelessness across Canada.By consulting enumerations from 61 designated communities that participated in the 2018 Nationally Coordinated Point-in-Time Count and two regional repositories – one for homeless counts supported by the government of British Columbia and another from the Rural Development Network – this paper reports on the scale and scope of Black homelessness across Canada.Significantly, these reports demonstrate that Black people are over-represented among those experiencing homelessness compared to local and national populations. These enumerations also demonstrate significant gaps in the reporting of Black homelessness and inadequate nuance in data collection methods, which lim...
Source: Housing, Care and Support - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: research