We are updating our methodology:

Since 2022, End Homelessness St. John’s (EHSJ) has reported on how many people we know to be experiencing homelessness in St. John’s using By Name Data (BND). BND is a real-time, centralized list of who is experiencing homelessness managed by EHSJ. It includes people who have completed a standardized consent and intake form for Coordinated Access to Homes (CAH), our community’s network of homelessness service providers. Unfortunately, this means there were people we knew were homeless (for example, staying at an emergency shelter), but who were not known to CAH, so we were not able to include them in our monthly counts.

In Fall 2023, after years of planning, EHSJ launched HIFIS 4.0 for St. John’s – a community-wide database of people experiencing homelessness shared by frontline homelessness service providers. This shared system makes life easier for both clients and staff. Instead of telling their story three times at three different agencies, clients have one shared file that partner agencies can access and contribute to. HIFIS cuts down on duplicated work and helps staff access the information they need to provide better, faster support. HIFIS gives our community a fuller, more accurate picture of homelessness in St. John’s – who is affected, what support is needed, and where the gaps are.

Launching a community-wide data system is a long-term project involving hundreds of people. Since going live, we’ve been steadily improving it – customizing the platform, adding clients, strengthening data quality, and onboarding new agencies and shelters. HIFIS now includes people known to CAH through BND as well as people experiencing homelessness who aren’t yet connected to CAH.

As of April 2025, we are putting these two sources together to better understand the scope of homelessness in our community. The large jump in numbers seen in April and the months following doesn’t necessarily mean more people became homeless – it reflects how much better we’ve become at seeing and recording the full picture. We know there are still gaps. Not every shelter is fully participating in HIFIS yet, and not everyone experiencing homelessness is reflected in our data. But we are always working to close those gaps – by supporting shelters to use HIFIS effectively, expanding participation, and strengthening the system as a whole.

This work is ongoing, and likely always will be. But our commitment is clear: to provide the most accurate, useful information possible for the public, for community partners, and most importantly, for the people we serve, all of whom deserve a place to call home.

What do the updated numbers tell us about homelessness in St. John's?
The data above represent a number of factors that have contributed to the increase. It is important to understand that a portion of the increase is a result of EHSJ refining our tools and methods of data collection. This has enabled us to have a more complete picture of the scope of individuals experiencing homelessness in our community.

Having said that, it's also clear that external factors have contributed to a rise in numbers in our community overall.
Some of the factors include:

• Increases in inflation
• The financialization of housing
  
• Increases in costs for new builds
  
• A rise in Provincial immigration targets
  
• A signficant decrease in the vacancy rate
  
• An overall increase in rental prices
  
• An end of some rent promotions
  
• Shrinking opportunities as a result of increase short-term rentals
  

We've also see a rise in individual pressures such as:

• Unmet healthcare demands
  
• Newfoundland's aging population
  
• The ongoing opioid crisis