The City will be conducting its sixth Streets Needs Assessment (SNA) in October, working collaboratively with community partners in the homelessness and allied sectors. The SNA is a city-wide point-in-time count and survey of people experiencing homelessness that will be used to inform evidence-based service planning and programming across the homelessness sector in Toronto. An important goal of the SNA is to give people experiencing homelessness a voice in identifying their service needs.
The City and other municipalities are required, as a condition of federal Reaching Home funding, to conduct the Street Needs Assessment between October 1 and November 30, 2024.
Implementation of the Street Needs Assessment would not be possible without the support and participation of City staff and partners from across the homelessness service system. The 2024 SNA will be conducted by outreach workers, shelter staff and peers with lived experience of homelessness.
The SNA will include people who are staying:
The methodology used does not include people who are experiencing hidden homelessness, such as people who are temporarily staying with friends or family.
The main objectives of the SNA are to:
Data collected through the SNA will help inform the City’s 2025-2030 Strategic Plan for homelessness services, which is being developed by the City’s Toronto Shelter & Support Services Division.
Previous Street Needs Assessments have helped to improve program and service delivery, such as the creation of an Indigenous funding stream with a 20 per cent allocation of funding, new shelter development, and priority populations for housing benefit programs.