On Tuesday, York University’s Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH) launched two toolkits aimed at supporting communities working with homeless and at-risk youth.
“By highlighting promising practices that address employment, education and housing issues for homeless youth, we are giving agencies the tools they need to replicate successful programs,” said York University Professor Stephen Gaetz, director of COH.
Youth Transitional Housing Toolkit
This toolkit looks at transitional housing initiatives for homeless youth using both on- and off-site models of housing. It features the great work being done by Covenant House Toronto and Covenant House Vancouver.
Youth Employment Toolkit
The second toolkit examines the innovative youth employment program Train for Trades, based in in St. John’s, Nfld. Part of Choices for Youth, this initiative merges green retrofitting, intensive case management and employment training in a successful endeavour.
Each toolkit includes both a PDF and online version, and is supported by a number of short videos covering a wide variety of topics that present the information in an engaging format and expand on the written content. The toolkits comprise extensive research and interviews with staff, partners, and current and past youth participants in the programs.
Quick Facts on Youth Homelessness
- Six to seven thousand young people experience homelessness or end up having contact with the system on any given night in Canada (State of Homelessness in Canada: 2014).
- An estimated 40,000 youth are homeless at some point each year (State of Homelessness in Canada: 2014).
- One out of every five shelter users is a youth between 16 and 24 years old (Coming of Age: Reimagining the Response to Youth Homelessness).
COH is funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council and based at York University. COH is the steward of the Homeless Hub, which is the world’s largest repository of homelessness research in the world. It is a non-profit, non-partisan institute of researchers, service providers, policy- and decision-makers, people with lived experience of homelessness, as well as graduate and undergraduate students from across Canada who are committed to conducting and mobilizing research so as to contribute to solutions to homelessness. COH is Canada’s leading research institute on homelessness. It works collaboratively with national, regional and local organizations, institutions and communities to ensure that research evidence has a greater impact on policy and practice.