Doug prefers to sleep on the streets or in a homeless hostel because he feels safer there than in the housing he has been offered to get him off the streets. Too many crack dealers there! About one in six of Toronto’s homeless cycle on and off the streets for many years before becoming stable housed -- if they are ever so. Relatively few end up permanently housed the first time they leave the streets. Over the summer WI is doing research to find out why homeless men and women in Toronto go back to the streets after they have been given housing. The research will also investigate what supports and other factors make it possible for some of the homeless who cycle on and off the streets to stay permanently housed. Research Director Pauline O’Connor is working with veteran homelessness researcher Jacques Tremblay on this project.
Over the summer Jacques will interview 100 or so men and women who have been homeless on and off for two or more years, as well as some workers in agencies who help the homeless. The study will be completed in the early Fall. Later in the Fall the Wellesley Institute is planning a symposium of local agencies working with the homeless to suggest ways to increase the number of homeless who become permanently, successfully house.