Report Release – Calling Home: Exploring Pathways to Homelessness in our City

In February 2018, Dixon Hall embarked on our first research project, thanks to funding from the Government of Canada’s Innovative Solutions to Homelessness program. Through this research, we aimed to:

Improve our understanding of the avenues that lead to homelessness and the complex needs of chronically homeless individuals
Improve our understanding of guests of the Out of the Cold (OOTC) program who resist the traditional shelter system
Compare the experiences of OOTC program guests with shelter residents including their use of social services offered in the city of Toronto
Understand where OOTC program guests go when the season closes and how they spend their time
Test the use of cellphone technology when working with individuals experiencing homelessness
Empower participants to share their unique personal histories and lived experiences with homelessness and make recommendations for service improvements

We collected data through focus groups, one-on-on interviews, and surveys,  taking a community-based participatory research approach which was crucial to the

Join us for a discussion exploring paths to homelessness in our city and solutions moving forward. This event will feature key findings from the Innovative Solutions to Homelessness Project.

As the Rooming House Project continues and evolves based on tenant needs, we explore the importance of tenant engagement as a key metric of project success.

In our second blog post exploring the work of the Rooming House Project, we examine the importance of building relationships and community connections for tenants.

As the homelessness crisis in Toronto continues to grow, we’re introducing one of our newest projects in Housing Services: The Rooming House project, designed to support precariously-housed individuals who live in rooming houses scattered throughout Cabbagetown. The project aims to help tenants build a better quality of life and stabilize housing.