Point in Time Connection

From November 15 to 19, the City of Hamilton joined communities across Canada in participating in Everyone Counts: the third nationally coordinated Point-in-Time Count in Canada. This initiative, referred to locally as the Point in Time Connection, is a joint planning effort with City of Hamilton’s Housing Services Division and the local Indigenous community through the Coalition of Hamilton Indigenous Leadership (CHIL).

During the initiative, staff from community-based social services organizations conducted surveys, hearing directly from unhoused residents, to better understand the needs of people experiencing homelessness in our community. 545 surveys were completed during the week at emergency shelters, drop-in programs, community agencies, and in unsheltered locations. Indigenous led magnet event was also held in Beasley Park on November 17 to provide an opportunity for Indigenous community members to be surveyed by Indigenous surveyors.

2022 Point in Time Connection Results

The goal of Hamilton’s homeless-serving System is to connect people to the housing resources that will best meet their needs to access long-term sustainable housing. The system follows the principles of housing first and relies on person-centred data to facilitate the housing process.Point in Time Connection data helps to ensure available resources are leveraged as efficiently and effectively as possible to prevent and end homelessness.

• City of Hamilton Point in Time Connection Results - 2021(PDF, 1.09 MB) 
  In keeping with the principles of Indigenous data sovereignty, as directed by the Indigenous Community Advisory Board (ICAB), CHIL will continue to lead the analysis of Indigenous respondent data and the City of Hamilton will not use this data without the approval of the ICAB. See below for the full analysis of Indigenous respondent data, completed by CHIL and approved by the ICAB:
• 2021 Point in Time Count Indigenous Responses – Hamilton(PDF, 1.15 MB)
• 2021 PiT Infographic - Indigenous Respondents(PDF, 800.43 KB) 

Background

• Completion of the PiTC fulfilled requirements of both the Federal government’s Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy and the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
• The 2021 PiTC complements existing local efforts to collect and report on key data on the state of homelessness to inform homelessness prevention and reduction efforts.
• Hamilton was the second community in Ontario to undertake homelessness enumeration in 2016 and one of the first to put in place a Coordinated Access system underpinned by a By-Name Priority List.
• Hamilton’s PiTC was initially planned for April 2020, however was subsequently postponed by the City of Hamilton and CHIL due to COVID-19 response and impacts, and to await further direction from Federal and Provincial Governments.
• Unlike in previous years, no additional volunteers were recruited to support the surveying. The 2021 PiTC survey was conducted over the course of the week of November 15-19, 2021 in order to: ease the burden on agency staff working to complete the surveys and provide essential services in the community; to enable more time to safely connect with individuals and families in a variety of settings; and to avoid large gatherings to reduce the risk of infection and community spread of COVID-19 within these settings.