I recently helped organize a homelessness study tour of New York City. Our group consisted of 30 Canadians from the non-profit sector, government, law enforcement and academia. We toured six sites over a three-day period. Here’s my ‘top 10’ overview of the tour: https://nickfalvo.ca/ten-things-to-know-about-homelessness-in-new-york-city/
Role of Government
On 28 February 2023, the Danielle Smith government tabled Alberta’s 2023-2024 budget. Projecting a $2.4 billion surplus for the coming fiscal year, the budget announced some spending increases; but many are effectively cuts when one accounts for both inflation and population growth. Here are 10 things to know: In sum. When one accounts for both inflation and population growth, this [...]
I’m writing an open access textbook on homelessness. Chapter 4 has just been published. A ‘top 10’ overview of the chapter can be found here:https://nickfalvo.ca/emergency-facilities/ The full chapter is available here:https://nickfalvo.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Falvo-Chapter-4-Emergency-Facilities-30jan2023.pdf And all material related to the book can be found here:https://nickfalvo.ca/book/
I’ve written a ‘top 10’ overview of things to know about affordable housing and homelessness, as they relate to Canada’s upcoming federal budget. The overview is based on the affordable housing and homelessness chapter in the just-released Alternative Federal Budget. A link to the ‘top 10’ overview is here.
In March 2020, the Trudeau government launched a new version of the Insured Mortgage Purchase Program (IMPP). According to CMHC’s website: “Under this program, the government will purchase up to $50 billion of insured mortgage pools through CMHC.” Here are 10 things to know: 1. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) is a federally-owned crown corporation. Many of us know [...]
I recently participated in a panel discussion in David Hulchanski’s graduate-level social housing and homelessness course at the University of Toronto. Points raised in the blog post include the fact that all English-speaking countries of the OECD have relatively low levels of public social spending, relatively low levels of taxation, and serious affordable housing challenges. The link to the full [...]
On July 21, the Alternative Federal Budget Recovery Plan was released. The document aims to provide public policy direction to Canada’s federal government, in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic. I was author of the Recovery Plan’s chapter on affordable housing and homelessness, which can be accessed here.
As part of my PhD thesis, I did some statistical analysis in which I asked the question: “Do higher social assistance benefit levels lead to higher caseloads?” I have recently updated the data and had it published in a journal. Here’s a short summary of the journal article’s main findings.
I’ve written a report for the Institute for Research on Public Policy about social assistance—specifically, about social assistance for employable single adults without dependants. A ‘top 10’ overview of the report can be found here.
The Calgary Homeless Foundation has just released a 12-city scan of homelessness planning during COVID. It’s a national study (which I authored). My ‘top 10’ overview of the study can be found here.