Background
In recent years, Peel Region has experienced a growing number of encampments. Although they vary in size and structure, the term ‘encampment’ is used to describe any location where an individual or a group of people experiencing homelessness live together, usually in tents or other temporary structures (Farha & Schwan, 2020). This rise in encampment numbers is due to a number of factors, including a lack of affordable housing, emergency shelter overflows and overcrowding, and limited options for people who do not wish to stay in emergency shelters. The end of the provincial government’s pandemic Social Service Relief emergency funding in May 2022 has also contributed to the number of encampment residents, as people who were previously accommodated in hotel or motel rooms and housing units through that funding were left with few options but to return to encampments.
Research Purpose
In the summer of 2022, the Peel Poverty Action Group (PPAG), a community grassroots group advocating for issues surrounding poverty and homelessness in Peel Region, identified the need to conduct a needs assessment in the Peel Region to better understand the growing encampment situation in the community. Through the help of the Peel Alliance to End Homelessness (PAEH) and its community partners, PPAG carried out the survey with the encampment and unsheltered residents across Peel from November to December of 2022.
With assistance from the Peel Alliance to End Homelessness, PPAG collaborated with Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Dufferin/Peel Street Outreach, Moyo Health & Community Services (formerly known as Peel HIV/AIDS Network), and Regeneration and Wellfort Bloom Clinic to carry out a study to understand and address the needs of people living in encampments in Peel Region. The study was inspired by the environmental scan on encampments conducted in Kitchener, Waterloo (Brown et al., 2022). PPAG contracted Hub Solutions, the social enterprise of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH), to conduct an analysis of the information collected through the survey and to develop a final report.
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