OTTAWA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Statistics Canada on Monday revealed that about 3 percent of Canadians responsible for housing decisions within their households had experienced unsheltered homelessness in the past.
Quoting the results from a new study "A portrait of Canadians who have been homeless" released on Monday, Statistics Canada said, "They contribute significantly to our understanding of this social issue in Canada, particularly because information on unsheltered homelessness is very scarce."
Unsheltered homelessness is defined as having lived in a homeless shelter, on the street or in a park, in a makeshift shelter, or in an abandoned building.
About 15 percent of Canadians who made housing decisions for their household had experienced hidden homelessness, defined as having to temporarily live with family or friends, or anywhere else, because they had nowhere else to live, according to the study, which used data from the 2018 Canadian Housing Survey, conducted over five months from November 2018 to March 2019 to examine the characteristics of individuals who had previously experienced homelessness.
"Although a minority of Canadians experience homelessness at a certain point in their life, some groups are at an elevated risk, including sexual minorities, Indigenous people and Black women," Statistics Canada said.
The study found that higher rates of homelessness among the Indigenous population were associated with systemic barriers to employment and education, racial discrimination in the housing market, and the intergenerational effects of colonization and residential school experiences.
The study also indicated that people responsible for housing decisions, but who experienced homelessness in the past, had substantially worse socioeconomic and health circumstances than those who did not.
Given the nature of the data, the results of this study were representative of Canadians who were housing decision makers within their households, but not necessarily of all Canadians aged 15 and older, according to Statistics Canada. ■