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By Ron Kneebone

In 2009, an estimated 147,000 people, or about one in 230 Canadians, stayed in an emergency homeless shelter. It is important to emphasize this is not the number of people experiencing homelessness; it is, instead, the number of people without a home who have exhausted all other options, and so been forced into an emergency shelter.

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Homelessness is an exceptionally complex social problem. It has root causes in the personal traits of those most likely at risk of a spell of homelessness, but also, and far more importantly for the majority of those experiencing homelessness, the factors that influence the housing options available to the poorest of the poor.

Contrary to popular belief, most people who use emergency shelters will do so for a few days a year, or for a few weeks spread over a five-year period. The chronically homeless, whether for long periods or with repeated episodes, are a minority of those experiencing homelessness. An implication is that the majority of emergency shelter beds are provided to meet the needs of people who experience homelessness for short and infrequent periods and do so as a result of poverty.