A $100 increase in Calgary’s median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment could lead to 10 per cent more people entering the city’s homeless shelters for the first time if income support remains unchanged, according to a new University of Calgary study. Using 2024 figures, that would mean about 377 additional people seeking shelter. The study by economist Ron Kneebone also links higher rents relative to incomes with more nights spent in shelter during the year after someone first enters the system. People first entering the shelter system in 2024 spent an average of 39 nights in shelter over the following year, compared with 23 nights for those entering in 2019. Kneebone, a professor emeritus of economics and research fellow at the university’s School of Public Policy, examined records for 52,129 single people identified as first-time shelter users between 2009 and 2024. His report, released Thursday, found that as housing became less affordable, new shelter users were more likely to spend longer periods in shelters. “A sensible interpretation of this observation is that a less affordable rental market traps people in shelters and requires shelters to maintain higher capacities,” Kneebone wrote. The study used anonymized records supplied by the Calgary Homeless Foundation and the Alberta government from shelters operated by the Mustard Seed, Salvation Army, Alpha House and Calgary Drop-In Centre. Those providers historically accounted for about 99 per cent of Calgary’s emergency shelter beds for single people. The analysis excluded family shelters, domestic violence shelters and emergency winter beds. Researchers grouped people by the year they first entered the system, then counted their total nights in shelter over the following 365 days. Those nights were not necessarily consecutive. Most new users spent relatively little time in shelter. Averaging across the 16 annual groups, 30 per cent stayed only one night during their first year. Just under 76 per cent spent 30 nights or fewer in shelter, while about 4.8 per cent stayed six months or more. But average shelter use increased for each group entering from 2020 through 2024. For people aged 18 to 24, the average rose from 14.5 nights among those entering in 2019 to 30 nights for those entering in 2024. For adults 25 and older, it increased from 24.5 to 40.5 nights. To examine housing affordability, Kneebone compared Calgary’s median rent for a one-bedroom apartment with the income support available to a single person under Alberta Works who is classified as expected to work. The analysis associated a one per cent increase in that rent-to-income ratio with a 1.57 per cent increase in first-time shelter admissions and roughly a 1.4 per cent increase in nights spent in shelter during the first year. The report also modelled how increased income support could affect shelter use. A $500 increase in annual income support, with rents unchanged, was estimated to reduce first-time admissions by 6.8 per cent, or about 256 people, using 2024 figures. Those figures are modelled estimates rather than observed results of policy changes. The study measures shelter use rather than tracking where people live after leaving. A short shelter stay does not, by itself, establish that someone found stable housing. Kneebone argues that improving access to housing affordable to people with very low incomes could both reduce shelter admissions and shorten stays. “Highly responsive social services and a rental market able to provide housing at a cost affordable to those with very low income can minimize lengths of homelessness periods, but realistically they cannot prevent all experiences of homelessness,” he wrote. He points to government decisions affecting income assistance, housing development and rental costs, saying shelter agencies work within conditions they largely cannot control. “It is important to note, however, that homeless-serving sectors operate in an environment where the causes of homelessness and the reasons for lengths of stay in shelters lie largely outside their influence or control,” Kneebone wrote. While the Calgary Homeless Foundation funded the research, Kneebone said the findings do not necessarily represent the views of the foundation or the Alberta government.
