A Year of Data from Siloam Mission’s Shelter
At Siloam Mission, we care deeply about the people who come through our doors. But there are many misconceptions about who uses our shelter and for how long. We’ve noticed three myths about shelters that may create potential misunderstandings and affect important decisions and processes:
- People stay in shelters forever.
- People don’t get housed.
- People come back to shelter.
We decided to look at our own shelter and those using it over the course of a year to find out if any of these myths could be true.
From April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024, we collected data using snapshots.
These snapshots are taken every 6 nights — we didn’t want data from the same day of the week because we know some of our community members have rotating schedules. This does mean, though, that we did miss folks who stayed for five or fewer nights.
With all of that in mind, we still gathered some good information, so let’s bust some myths.
Myth 1: People Stay in Shelters Forever
Many people think that someone who uses a shelter stays there indefinitely. But our data tells a different story.
The blue lines on the graph below indicate percentages of people who stayed for the corresponding length of time or less. For example, over the past year, 994 unique individuals used our shelter. Of these, 318 (about 32%) stayed for roughly six nights. More than half of all shelter users stayed for three weeks or fewer, and only 7% stayed for half a year or more.
With the average length of stay being 51 days, we can safely say that the majority of people accessing Siloam’s shelter use it for a shorter period of time. So, the idea that people stay in shelters forever is simply not true.
Myth 2: People Don’t Get Housed
Another common assumption is that people who stay in shelters never find housing. But our experience shows otherwise. There are two ways we can know the destination of folks when they leave the shelter: they either come back and tell us, or we help house them. The majority of folks fall into the unknown category. However, we do know the journey of 105 people who found housing after leaving our shelter:
- 7 were housed by outside agencies.
- 12 found housing on their own.
- 12 were housed by Siloam’s Transition Services team, which also houses many community members not staying in Siloam’s shelter.
- 74 were housed by Siloam’s housing-focused case workers.
The fact is, many of the people we work with do move on to permanent housing. Your support plays a big role in these success stories.
Myth 3: People Come Back to Shelters
It’s often assumed that people return to shelters repeatedly. If folks can get help from family and friends, their chances of experiencing homelessness again go down. Though we can’t always know that this is the case, a key piece of information is whether or not people return after leaving the shelter.
At Siloam’s shelter, about 232 unique individuals are helped each month. If someone shows up in one month and then again in another month, this suggests they didn’t get the support they needed.
The below graph tracks people returning based on their first recorded stay with us.
For instance, out of 236 people who used Siloam’s Shelter in April 2023, only 144 returned in May, and, by June, just 110 returned. This trend continues and is repeated in later months, showing that most people are finding solutions and not returning to the shelter.
Conclusion
We’ve learned that a majority of folks (75%) stay for less than two months, many folks find housing after leaving the shelter, and many folks don’t come back.
So, the next time you hear these myths about shelters, refer to these insights and help raise awareness in our community. Learning from these findings helps us ensure that homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring as we move towards a Winnipeg without Chronic Homelessness.
