By Liam Verster

Homeless and housing challenges survey

Homeless count and evaluation of services to go in County of Grande Prairie

Oct 7, 2020 | 9:27 AM

A survey will be launched later this month by the Alberta Rural Development Network (ARDN), to gather data on the number of homeless and people facing housing challenges in the County of Grande Prairie, while also gathering information on the relevant services available to those individuals.

This is the second Rural Homelessness Estimation Project done in the County, the first was performed in 2018. However, Julia Juco, the community lead on the Rural Housing and Service Needs Estimation Project, says there were some difficulties in gathering responses in the first survey, mainly because of the use of the term ‘homeless.’

“One of the things we did for this year’s count, is that we tried to really step away from that stigmatizing term of homelessness, and kind of really capture what we are actually trying to look for in our data, which is more asking people about their housing situation, and kind of the services they’re accessing in the community,” says Juco.

Juco adds that in rural communities, homelessness isn’t alway visible like it is within cities.

“In rural communities, we wouldn’t typically find absolutely unsheltered individuals outside in the town core. Sometimes when it comes to rural homelessness, people are couch surfing, people live in crowded conditions at home with multi-generational families, and so these are the things that we are really trying to capture when it comes to this method we are following.”

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The survey has been taken from the National Point in Time Count, and Juco says the hope is to take the data from the survey and compare it to other National Point in Time Count data.

The survey runs from October 16 to November 16, and there will be paper copies available at these locations:

• The County of Grande Prairie Family and Community Support Services Department (FCSS)
• Beaverlodge FCSS
• Family Education Society
• GP Youth Emergency Shelter
• Odyssey House
• Seniors Outreach
• Sexsmith FCSS
• United Way
• Wellington Resource Centre
• Wembley FCSS

The survey will also be available over the phone at the County’s FCSS Department, and online. Participants can message one of the participating agencies to receive a code to access the survey.

Through this survey, data can be collected on the homeless and housing resources and needs in the County, without adding an extra burden on the agencies such as food banks or shelters, by forcing them to delegate resources towards administering the survey.

The data will be compiled into a report by ARDN, that can then be used as a resource tool by the service agencies to modify or improve their services and supports to meet the needs of more people.