Transforming Homelessness Research

Addressing the needs of people experiencing homelessness (PEH) is complex and requires multidisciplinary collaboration to develop comprehensive, whole-person solutions. While social care research has identified solutions that may improve health and meet social needs of PEH, few of these solutions have been co-developed, co-designed, and conducted with the perspectives and knowledge of both people with lived experience of homelessness as well as community stakeholders. Without including these important voices in social care research for PEH, researchers risk generating evidence that is not a priority for their local communities and potentially furthering the racial inequities that are common among homeless populations. 

For the past three years, our project team has been collaborating to explore factors that contribute to these disparities, identify unmet needs among PEH and distinct needs of Black adults experiencing homelessness, and understand ways in which local homeless service providers are meeting those needs. Our findings indicate that while services exist to meet health and social needs of PEH in the local community, those services are fragmented, inequitably distributed and continue to overlook distinct needs of the Black population. 

The overall objective of the current project is to identify social care-related priorities of PEH and homeless services providers and co- develop a comprehensive research agenda to improve community capacity for social care research and practice. The rationale for the proposed project is that building relationships and increasing engagement capacity with communities before conducting research is critical for meaningful community-engaged research that advances health equity.