A comparison of three rural emergency homeless shelters: exploring the experiences and lessons learned in small town Ontario

Abstract

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Per capita rates of homelessness are higher in many rural communities than Canada’s largest cities, yet little attention has focused on strategies to address rural homelessness. This study compared experiences and lessons learned from three models of homeless shelters in a small town in rural Ontario: a church, motel, and warming center. Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted with 17 individuals who stayed in or administered any of three emergency shelters that ran between 2019 and 2022. Results: Participants described challenges resulting from insufficient structure, policies, partnerships, funding, and training that led the church and motel shelters to be unsustainable. The warming center had more sustainable funding but lacked supports and had short operating hours. Several aspects of participants’ experiences were unique to the rural context, including the lack of infrastructure, precarity of services, and feelings of being surveilled and pushed out of their community. Informal supports and a sense of connection to their hometown meant most had no intention of leaving. Conclusion: The strengths of each model and lessons learned offer opportunities to improve and adapt emergency shelters to the rural context.KEYWORDS: Rural homelessnessemergency shelterslived experiencehealth and social services‌sustainability AcknowledgementsI’d like to acknowledge the support of all the participants who shared their experiences with me so that others might benefit from the lessons they’ve learned, and the North Hastings Community Trust that helped with recruitment and offered space for several interviews.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Data availability statementThe data underlying this article cannot be shared publicly to maintain privacy of individuals that participated in the study. The data will be shared on reasonable request.Additional informationFundingThe author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.Notes on contributorsEllen Buck-McFadyenEllen Buck-McFadyen began her career in community and public health nursing. She completed her PhD in nursing at McMaster University and is currently an assistant professor and the graduate program director in the Trent/Fleming School of Nursing at Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario. Ellen has been conducting research in the areas of rural health and the social determinants of health, including the impact of social capital, food insecurity, homelessness, and substance use in the rural context.