Study: LGBTQ2S housing data lacking
Researchers from Dalhousie University are calling on the federal government to collect data in order to address the unique barriers that older LGBTQ2S Canadians face when it comes to accessing safe, affordable and affirming housing.
In a briefing note published Thursday, Dalhousie University health promotion professor Jacqueline Gahagan and other researchers from the Maceachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance shared key findings from research they gathered on the housing experiences of LGBTQ2S Canadians who are aged 55 and above.
The research study was funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
It consisted of three parts: a review of existing international housing policies, programs and interventions aimed at LGBTQ2S populations, a national online housing survey and focus group discussions in five Canadian cities including Halifax and Ottawa to identify the housing needs of older LGBTQ2S Canadians.
Gahagan said the federal government’s National Housing Strategy released in 2017 touches on a number of vulnerable populations including LGBTQ2S folks when it comes to housing precarity and homelessness, but there is no data to “understand the magnitude of the problem.”
“I sure hope that folks like Statscan and others will pick up the mantle and actually address the existing data gaps ...” Dr. Jacqueline Gahagan
DATA NOT BEING COLLECTED
That’s why Gahagan and her research partners embarked on the study.
“What we found was most of the literature that’s published around housing and older LGBTQ folks describes in great graphic details the problems, but very few of any of them actually talk about the solutions including policy related, data related or regulatory related solutions,” she said.
“The data are not being collected full stop.”
According to Gahagan, older LGBTQ2S Canadians face unique housing challenges due to various factors. This includes not having an accepting family of origin to fall back on for housing support because they’ve been rejected by their family due to their LGBTQ2S identity.
In the focus group discussions, Gahagan said some HIV positive gay men shared their fears of moving from independent living to congregate living, such as a seniors’ residence or long-term care facility, because they may be judged by care staff or other residents.
“They not only have to come out about their sexual orientation and risk rejection, harassment and violence, but also then have to, in some instances, come out about their HIV status,” she said.
“(They) don’t know whether that situation is affirming or accepting and (they) just try to hide who (they) are in order to survive in those living situations, which is not ideal in anybody’s life.”
She added older LGBTQ2S Canadians in some cases are forced to share a room in congregate living situations with other seniors who “fundamentally disagree” with their sexual orientations or gender identities.
SAFE LIVING SPACES
While Canada is "touted as one of the most progressive" countries when it comes to human rights protections, Gahagan said it’s not collecting “important” data such as who exactly is in congregate living situations and whether those living spaces are actually “safe and affirming” for everybody.
She noted countries like the U.S. and some in the E.U. have required national training or certification in place to ensure that congregate living residences are safe and affirming for LGBTQ2S individuals, but Canada does not.
The researchers’ hope, said Gahagan, is that federal government agencies will begin to fill some of these data gaps on health and housing outcomes for older LGBTQ2S Canadians.
“I sure hope that folks like Statscan and others will pick up the mantle and actually address the existing data gaps and that the policy developers working in the housing sector will actually take the data and inform their policies and programs based on those data and improve the situation for older LGBTQ2S Canadians,” she said.
Mila Mckay, a spokesperson for Nova Scotia ACORN who is trans, said further data collection from the federal government is “a great idea.”
“The government collecting that data means that you can point to some kind of numbers and say this is what’s happening,” she said.
Once that data is collected, Mckay said LGBTQ2S individuals should be involved in the process of interpreting it because “people who deal with the issue should be involved in solving it.”
The researchers are slated to release two additional briefs on regulation and engagement on housing for older LGBTQ2S Canadians over the next two weeks.