In addition, the Greater Vancouver Regional Steering Committee on Homelessness between 2005 and 2008 (RSCH) found both an increase in the average age of the homeless to over 40 as well as a significant increase in the number of individuals over 45 years of age amongst the homeless. [...] At the start of this review, the committee acknowledged the lack of available research concerning homeless seniors. [...] This review will follow the common themes presented in the readings, which break down the issues of homeless seniors in the following contexts: Challenges and Characteristics of Homeless Seniors Physical and Mental Health Issues Best Practices How the literature was compiled The papers that make up the literature review are a combination of published research, grey literature, and government [...] The report highlighted that the impact of the two sets of variables, agency and communion, differ for older men and women. [...] Beatty and Berdahl (2011) present Statistics Canada projections, which show that seniors will make up 6.5% of the total Aboriginal population, 8% of the Métis population; 6% of the First Nation population; and 4% of the Inuit population by 2017 (p.