Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee today.
I'd like to start by providing you with some statistical information about women's homelessness. Results from ESDC's 2016 national shelter study showed that 137,000 Canadians used an emergency shelter in 2014, which is our most recent statistic. Between 2005 and 2014, 27% of shelter users were women, a number that remained consistent over that decade.
Nearly 90% of families using emergency shelters are headed by single females, and family shelter use is increasing in both length and occupancy. Typical stay lengths more than doubled between 2005 and 2014 to 22 days.
Thirty per cent of emergency shelter users in 2014 identified themselves as indigenous. The 2016 shelter study also showed that between 2005 and 2014, indigenous people were 10 times more likely to use a shelter than were non-indigenous people. Additionally, there was a higher rate of homelessness among indigenous women compared to non-indigenous, as 32% of indigenous shelter users are women compared to 23.5% of non-indigenous shelter users.
It's important to place the statistics from the 2016 shelter study in context and to acknowledge that it examines emergency shelters and does not capture transitional housing, temporary shelters and violence-against-women shelters.
We have data-sharing agreements with shelters across the country, which make up approximately 60% of the total beds associated with emergency, transitional, corrections, immigrant/refugee and violence-against-women shelters in Canada.
Violence-against-women shelters are, however, currently under-represented in our database, as very few of these facilities have data-sharing agreements with our program. In addition, shelter data does not capture the homeless situation of the many women who experience hidden homelessness and who do not engage with the shelter system. That being the case, shelter data likely underestimates the extent of women's homelessness.
However, combining shelter data with additional resources, such as our coordinated point-in-time count, helps to fill in some of the gaps. Results of the 2016 count, which happened across the country in 32 communities, showed that close to 40% of homeless respondents were women. Furthermore, as you know, there is strong evidence linking domestic violence with homelessness for women and children. Of those surveyed during the 2016 count, nearly one-quarter cited domestic abuse as the factor leading to their most recent housing loss.
We anticipate that an updated national shelter study and results from the 2018 coordinated point-in-time count will be released in early 2019.
Currently, the federal homelessness program, the Homelessness Partnering Strategy or HPS, provides direct funding to 61 designated communities, as well as off-reserve indigenous and rural and remote communities across Canada.
The HPS is delivered through a unique community-based approach that gives communities the flexibility and tools to identify and address their own community's distinct homelessness needs and priorities.
Following a comprehensive community planning process, communities determine their own needs/priorities and develop appropriate projects.
The Government of Canada is one partner among many when it comes to tackling homelessness. Provinces and territories, municipalities and other stakeholders also contribute to the prevention and reduction of homelessness.
Large capital investments are limited under the HPS, which focuses instead on providing funding for longer-term supports such as the Housing First approach.
Since 2014, the HPS has been focused on the Housing First approach.
Housing First is a program originally designed to get more individuals experiencing long-term homelessness into permanent housing and then providing them with wrap-around supports as quickly as possible.
While the Housing First approach was initially tested among homeless individuals who are single and living with mental health and/or addiction issues, the approach has been used successfully with a variety of demographic groups, including women and families.
Between April 1, 2014, and October 2018, the HPS has provided $40.4 million for just over 225 projects that exclusively support women. About one-third of these projects exclusively target women fleeing domestic violence.
To strengthen the work of communities in their efforts to help homeless Canadians find stable housing, budget 2017 proposed historic investments in federal homelessness programming of $2.1 billion over 10 years, to expand and extend the funding for homelessness beyond 2019. By 2021, this will nearly double the investments made in homelessness as compared to those for 2015-16.
Throughout 2017 and early 2018, the Government of Canada consulted with community stakeholders, all provinces and territories, and indigenous partners on how to modernize programming to better prevent and reduce homelessness across Canada.
These consultations were guided by the work of an advisory committee of experts and stakeholders in the field of homelessness, chaired by parliamentary secretary Adam Vaughan.
Two of the advisory committee members have worked in the women's shelter sector.
That committee heard that organizations would like to innovate and adapt the Housing First model to better meet the needs of indigenous peoples, youth, women and others who need different approaches or types and levels of support.
Federal homelessness programming is in the midst of a transformation toward a more coordinated and outcomes-based approach. In June 2018, Minister Jean-Yves Duclos announced Reaching Home, Canada's homelessness strategy, which will replace the HPS on April 1, 2019. Reaching Home will support the goals of the national housing strategy, in particular to support the most vulnerable Canadians in maintaining safe, stable and affordable housing and to reduce chronic homelessness nationally by 50% by 2027-28. The redesigned program, Reaching Home, will maintain the community-based approach of the HPS and expand the program to reach new communities.