Managing the consequences of homelessness is expensive for governments. The annual cost of homelessness in Alberta is approximately $54,000 per person or $95,000 for a family. These costs include funding for emergency shelters and homeless-serving organizations, as well as indirect costs such as emergency room visits, corrections, and interactions with justice services. 

To avoid homelessness in Calgary, a family of four needs an annual income of $42,582, and a single person needs an annual income of $18,392. Income support can be an effective tool for helping people avoid homelessness, but the current benefit rates are currently inadequate to serve this purpose.  However, by increasing annual social assistance income by $7,502 for a family of four and $8,767 for a single person living in Calgary the rate of homelessness could reduce and save the government tens of thousands of dollars used to manage homelessness. 

The Homelessness Income Cut-Off (HICO) is a measure of the income a person or family needs to avoid homelessness after cutting back on other expenses. People living under the HICO are assumed to have taken extraordinary steps to minimize their out-of-pocket expenses to keep their housing. These steps include moving to poor-quality housing and relying heavily on food banks and other charities for their basic needs. 

Our latest policy brief, Preventing Homelessness by Closing the Social Assistance Gap, examines how deep the affordability crisis is for Calgarians living on low incomes and the policy actions that can be taken to adjust income supports to prevent homelessness.