Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC)

In Progress

Homelessness and Housing

In Canada, access to safe and affordable housing continues to be a challenge that many face day-to-day. There are currently over 25,000 people experiencing chronic homelessness in Canada, and 1.7 million in housing need, living in homes that are inadequate or unaffordable. Approximately 2,700 children in Canada sleep in family shelters every night.

Housing and health are closely connected; poor health can contribute to housing issues, and vice versa. Safe and affordable housing enables healthy lives.

About this project

Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC) is a network of more than 30 academics from across Canada and beyond who are engaged in independent, in-depth research exploring the connections between income, housing and health. Our non-academic partners include more than 50 organizations representing some 2,000 policymakers, housing providers and equity-seeking groups who are committed to growing Canada’s supply of safe, adequate, accessible and affordable housing.

How do we ensure that everyone in Canada has a home that they can afford and that meets their needs? Together, we are tackling this question and the many smaller questions within it that can collectively build up an answer. What does this look like for people with disabilities? For low-income Canadians? For people new to this land and for people whose families have been here for thousands of years? What effect will specific policy choices have? What level of investment will be required and how can that investment best be targeted? The answers to these questions we hope to answer using various quantitative and qualitative methods.

Our goals

Our mission is to accelerate evidence-based solutions that advance Canada’s National Housing Strategy to ensure every Canadian has “housing that meets their needs and that they can afford”.

We are working to:

• Facilitate access to housing data.
• Connect policy makers, researchers, housing providers and people with lived experience.
• Identify housing research priorities.
• Build Canada’s housing research capacity.

For our full list of partners, please click here.

Homelessness and Housing

Dr. James Dunn

Dr. James Dunn studies the urban built environment and health: how changes in our neighbourhoods and communities can affect us, and the real-life impacts of urban planning and social policies.

Investigators

Funders

  • National Housing Strategy, under the Collaborative Housing Research Network (Funded by Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council)

Collaborators

  • Options for Homes
  • Housing Services Corporation
  • UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence
  • Canadian Housing and Renewal Association
  • BC Non-Profit Housing Association
  • Manitoba Non-Profit Housing Association
  • Consortium québécois de recherche en logement abordable
  • Maytree

Contact Info

Dr. James Dunn