Last night, along with another volunteer, I was assigned a grid of streets to walk in the 2009 Street Needs Assessment, a point-in-time survey of homelessness in Toronto. All told, some 1600 volunteers blitzed the city, stopping everyone they met and asking a simple question: “Will you be staying indoors – in housing or a shelter – tonight?” If yes, that was the end of the survey. If no, the questions went on from there. The city conducted an identical survey in 2006 and hopes a comparison of data will help it formulate plans for the delivery of services to the homeless.
As you might expect, the SNA has its naysayers. On one end of the spectrum are the Toronto-phobe yokels who ridicule the idea that the city would pay 50 people $100 each to pretend to be homeless; the money would be better spent on services. The use of decoys is part of the survey methodology to ensure integrity of the data. The city (justifiably) ignored this kind of talk, which crept into mainstream newscasts as the date of the study approached.
On the other end of the spectrum are critiques of the survey’s assumptions and methodology. So, for example, a National Post editorial by Lorne Gunter challenges the “housing first” approach to homelessness, which happens to be the basis for the SNA. While Gunter’s politics are harsh, the question is valid: why housing first? More reasoned is this post by Mark Federmen which challenges the SNA’s positivist methodology (the data is inherently unreliable because there’s no way to test whether the responses are truthful). Streets To Homes manager, Iain de Jong, offers a response. You will note that de Jong’s response doesn’t say anything except, perhaps, that they’ve won a lot of awards for their work. The reason de Jong doesn’t say anything is that there is no substantive answer to Federman’s critique. Federman is right.
So if the survey is a waste of money, based on faulty assumptions, and provides no real data, then why did I participate? Here are some considerations:
1) It wasn’t as expensive as people let on. Relative to the size of the project, the cost is extremely low. Most of the labour is volunteer. The media keep forgetting to mention that fact. And it’s cheaper to administer the second time around.
2) While it is true that there is no way to ensure that responses are truthful, there are some safeguards. For example, each survey team includes a volunteer leader who has experience in delivery of social services. I was paired with someone who is a youth worker in a street outreach centre. Professional experience helps in assessing whether the interviewer is being “played.”
3) The survey itself can be regarded as a meta control for all the other statistics-gathering tools already being used by the city.
4) The Toronto experience can assist other municipalities in refining the data-gathering process.
5) There are a lot of good reasons (that have nothing to do with data gathering) for sending a huge contingent of volunteers onto the city’s streets:
• When you approach somebody on a nice residential street to talk to them about homelessness, you tacitly deliver an important message: “It happens even here.”
• It raises awareness.
• It tells people: “We give a damn.”
• At least for that night, the streets are a lot safer.
• It provides the city with a roster of volunteers it knows are committed to the issue.
• It provides people with an opportunity to demonstrate solidarity with those who are homeless.
As for my own experience last night, it was good just to get out and talk to people. Overwhelmingly, the response to our presence was positive. Rules of confidentiality preclude me from offering particulars. However, it is worth noting that the face of need takes unexpected forms.
Related posts:
Thu, Apr 16, 2009
Half-filtered