40,000 households in Calgary at high risk of homelessness: report
A new report out of the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy has found a concerning number of people are at high risk of homelessness in Calgary.
Data from 2016 showed approximately 40,000 households were at risk of homelessness at the time of the study and that number has likely gone up.
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Calgarians who qualify as high risk “have exhausted nearly all efforts to maintain their housing and are extremely vulnerable to even minor shocks to income or living costs,” according to the researchers.
These efforts include “using food banks, relying on charities, eating less nutritious diets, living in more crowded conditions, moving to housing with lower rent and giving up any hope of maintaining what the designers of Canada’s poverty line define as a ‘modest and basic standard of living.'”
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Researchers also looked at 2021 data which showed the average poverty gap fell to 35.2% from 38.7%. This change “indicates that the average income of those in Calgary with incomes below the poverty line was noticeably higher in 2021 than in 2016,” according to the report.
They highlighted the highest cost for people and a major contributing factor to homelessness in Calgary is housing. They recommend government implement policies that increase the income of people at risk and lower rent costs.
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