2018 Street Needs Assessment Results

The Street Needs Assessment (SNA) is a survey and point-in-time count of people experiencing homelessness in Toronto on April 26, 2018. The results provide a snapshot of the scope and profile of the City's homeless population. The results also give people experiencing homelessness a voice in the services they need to find and keep housing. The 2018 SNA is the City's fourth homeless count and survey and was part of a coordinated point-in-time count conducted by communities across Canada and Ontario. The results of the 2018 Street Needs Assessment were summarized in a report and key highlights slide deck.

During the course of the night, a 23 core question survey was completed with 2,019 individuals experiencing homelessness staying in shelters (including provincially-administered Violence Against Women shelters), 24-hour respite sites (including 24-hour women's drop-ins and the Out of the Cold overnight program open on April 26, 2018), and outdoors. The SNA includes individuals experiencing absolute homelessness but does not capture hidden homelessness (i.e., people couch surfing or staying temporarily with others who do not have the means to secure permanent housing). This dataset includes the SNA survey results; it does not include the count of people experiencing homelessness in Toronto.

The SNA employs a point-in-time methodology for enumerating homelessness that is now the standard for most major US and Canadian urban centres. While a consistent methodology and approach has been used each year in Toronto, changes were made in 2018, in part, as a result of participation in the national and provincial coordinated point-in-time count. As a result, caution should be made in comparing these results to previous SNA survey results. Key changes included: administering the survey in a representative sample (rather than census) of shelters; administering the survey in all 24-hour respite sites and a sample of refugee motel programs added to the homelessness service system since the 2013 SNA; and a standard set of core survey questions that communities were required to follow to ensure comparability. In addition, in 2018, surveys were not conducted in provincially-administered health and treatment facilities and correctional facilities as was done in 2013.

The 2018 survey results provide a valuable source of information about the service needs of people experiencing homelessness in Toronto. This information is used to improve the housing and homelessness programs provided by the City of Toronto and its partners to better serve our clients and more effectively address homelessness.

Visit https://www.toronto.calcity-government/data-research-maps/research-reports/housing-and-homelessness-research-and-reports/