How Many Housed People in Calgary are at Risk of Homelessness?

To facilitate a discussion of targeted approaches to prevention, we produce estimates of the number of adults and the number of children at risk of homelessness and the number of people at risk according to family structure. [...] structures, we provide a range of estimates of the number of people at risk of homelessness, a range defined by the ability of families and individuals to minimize their expenditures by relying on food banks, by crowding, by renting accommodations priced at the low end of the distribution of rent, and by minimizing expenditures on other basic needs. [...] CALCULATIONS The number of people who are housed but at risk of homelessness depends on the assumptions made regarding the extent of food bank use, how far toward the low end of the rent distribution is the cost of one’s housing, the extent of crowding, the level of income and by how much non-rent and non-food expenditures can be minimized. [...] It is worth noting that our measure is quite different from that used by the City of Calgary to identify the number of households in “core housing need.” The City defines a household as being in housing need when the income of that household is 65 percent or less of the median household income of all households in Calgary and spends 30 percent or more of that income on shelter (City of Calgary 201. [...] Because many policy responses are sensitive to the presence of children, we have provided estimates of the number of adults and the number of children at risk of homelessness and the number of people at risk according to family structure.