THUNDER BAY — Social service organizations behind the city's most recent homelessness point-in-time count are reaffirming their call for the community at large to help them advocate for solutions and are recommending a wide-range of places to start.
“I always talk about collective impact,” said Bonnie Krysowaty, the reaching home program manager at the Lakehead Social Planning Council — one of the lead organizations behind the study.
Preliminary findings of the count, which is designed to get a sense of how many people are homeless, as well as information about their circumstances, were released in November 2024. A meeting on Monday at St. Paul’s United Church was so researchers could share the data and findings in their final report and hold a question-and-answer period.
About 25 people attended.
“I talked about the community advocacy tonight — the funding cooperation and collaboration that's happening among governments … and also organizations working collectively together,” Krysowaty said in an interview after the meeting.
Krysowaty and Annika Gregg, the Indigenous homelessness community administrator at the Thunder Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre, also presented a list of recommendations, including investing in Indigenous-led and culturally appropriate housing initiatives, backing sheltering options that are low-barrier and focused on harm reduction, funding permanent supportive housing with embedded healthcare and mental health supports, advocating for raising payments like Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program and using a human rights approach when finding solutions to encampments.
The researchers also spoke about making sure the conversation includes people who are homeless and who find themselves in different (and often underserved) situations, such as couples, families, veterans, seniors and people with pets.
The time between the release of their preliminary information back in November and the final report allowed researchers to drill down into certain aspects of the data, Krysowaty said.
“So, we really looked (and) did a deep dive into the data, looked at the specific racialized information, looked more at the Indigenous data that we have, and really kind of parsed that out to see what the specific issues were,” she said.
For instance, the data shows that of the people who were homeless between the ages of 16 and 24, 92 per cent were Indigenous, Gregg said during their presentation.
“This indicates the importance of housing services and supports that meet the needs of Indigenous youth,” Gregg said.
On the other end of the age spectrum, Gregg said that 63 per cent of respondents in the age ranges of 50 to 64 and 65-plus identified as Indigenous.
“Again, speaking to the need for supports and services that support Indigenous elders and those who are aging,” she said.
“Overall, Indigenous experiences of homelessness must be viewed in the context of ongoing colonialism and systemic racism, and it's deeper than simply the lacking of a physical home of four walls,” Gregg continued.
“Indigenous homelessness is also interconnected with the loss of cultural, spiritual, emotional and physical connections.”
Part of that, researchers said, is related to the over-representation of Indigenous youth in the child welfare system and its connection to homelessness later on. Of those counted in the point-in-time surveying, 50 per cent of Indigenous respondents reported they were in the foster care system or group homes as young people.
Researchers again underscored that the official 557 number of people who were included in the point-in-time count is a large under-count, as these counts only take place over a 24-hour period (in this case, on Oct. 5 and 6, 2024), and have other limitations, such as people not being found during the counting period or a distrust or hesitancy to be involved.
The final report of the point-time-count pointed to a 2023 Homeless Individuals and Families Information System report that had the local number at 1,130.
The federal government mandates the point-in-time approach, Krysowaty said. The final report said they are useful for advocacy purposes and policy discussions but they’re also complemented by other data sources.
Overall, Krysowaty said she was encouraged by the conversation.
"It's great to see people that want to be advocates that want to really understand the issues and find out what they can do to help," she said.
