Search homelessness policy across Canada

What's being tried, where and by whom. In one search.

CivicInquire gathers homelessness-related policy from federal, provincial and municipal governments across Canada into one searchable place, so the people working on the problem can stop hunting across dozens of sites.

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What it does

One search instead of dozens of sites

Answering a basic question about homelessness policy in Canada means visiting site after site: a federal department here, a provincial ministry there, one municipality at a time. CivicInquire pulls that policy into one place, so a question that used to take days of digging starts with a single search.

Illustrative queries for demonstration. Live results are in the tool.
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The stakes

Why this work matters

More than one in ten Canadians has experienced homelessness at some point in their lives. Every level of government has mobilized a response. But without a shared way to understand what's working, those responses risk being disconnected from each other and from the people most affected.

1 in 10
More than 1 in 10 Canadians
It could be anyone.
Who it's for

Built for the people doing the work

Municipal staff

Scan how other municipalities are responding before the council report is due, without a week of tab-hopping.

Policy researchers

Compare approaches across jurisdictions without assembling the corpus by hand first.

Students

A starting point for coursework and theses that would otherwise begin with weeks of collection.

Community organizations

See what other communities have tried when making the case for a program at home.

How it works

Three steps to the record

01

Search

Enter a municipality, province, or policy theme to pull up relevant homelessness and housing policies from across Canada.

02

Compare

See how policies stack up against each other - by region, municipality size, or how detailed and enforceable they are.

03

Use what you find

Download documents, explore the national dashboard, and take the data back into your own work.

Our mission

From parallel efforts to a shared picture

Homelessness is growing in Canada, and the policy responses meant to address it are often disconnected from one another. Municipalities are developing strategies, provinces are setting targets, and the federal government is committing funding, but without a shared way to see, compare, and learn from what exists, those efforts risk working in parallel rather than together.

CivicInquire was built to change that. It brings together publicly available homelessness and housing policies from municipalities and governments across Canada in one searchable, open-access platform, so that the people working on this issue have the infrastructure to understand what's being done and where the gaps are.

The platform is for anyone with a stake in that work: municipal planners, housing policy staff, public health practitioners, researchers, advocates, and community members. It is free to use, with no barriers to access.

Who made it

The team behind the record

Record 01 · 08
Leia Minaker

Leia Minaker

Co-principal Investigator

Dr. Leia Minaker is Director of the Future Cities Institute founded by CAIVAN and an Associate Professor in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo. Her work sits at the intersection of urban health, planning policy, and evidence-based decision-making, with a focus on translating research into practical tools that improve how cities are built and governed. CivicInquire reflects her longstanding commitment to connecting academic research with the governments, organisations, and communities working on Canada's most pressing urban challenges.

Record 02 · 08
Helen Chen

Helen Chen

Project Lead / Co-principal Investigator

Dr. Helen Chen is a Professor of Practice and Director of the Professional Practice Centre in Health Systems at the University of Waterloo, with cross-appointments in Statistics and Actuarial Science and Computer Science. Her research focuses on artificial intelligence for public and population health, health data quality and analytics, and the evaluation of generative AI in applied health contexts. On CivicInquire, Dr. Chen leads the day-to-day research activities and oversees the development and implementation of the platform's machine learning tools.

Record 03 · 08
Adrian Buttazzoni

Adrian Buttazzoni

Research Associate

Dr. Adrian Buttazzoni is a postdoctoral fellow at the Future Cities Institute at the University of Waterloo. He holds a PhD in Planning from the University of Waterloo and an MSc in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences from Western University, and his research uses mixed methods approaches to examine how urban environments and design affect population health, with a particular focus on youth. On CivicInquire, Adrian supports the research design and qualitative analysis components of the project, including the policy discourse analysis.

Record 04 · 08
Pedro Miranda

Pedro Miranda

Platform Developer

Pedro Miranda is a doctoral student in the School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo. He holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and brings over five years of experience applying software engineering to healthcare innovation, including work with multinational healthcare companies and one of Brazil's largest private hospital networks. Pedro is the lead developer of the CivicInquire platform and its underlying data infrastructure.

Record 05 · 08
Mikayla Neeb

Mikayla Neeb

Research Assistant

Mikayla Neeb is a Master's candidate in the School of Public Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo, supervised by Dr. Helen Chen. She holds a BSc in Physics with a specialisation in Astrophysics and brings prior experience as a laboratory technician. Her graduate research investigates the use of large language models as assistive tools in qualitative coding, with a focus on responsible AI applications in social science research. On CivicInquire, Mikayla contributes to the platform's AI-assisted analysis work.

Record 06 · 08
Troy Glover

Troy Glover

Research Collaborator

Dr. Troy Glover is a Professor in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at the University of Waterloo and Director of the Healthy Communities Research Network. His research examines placemaking, social capital, and the conditions that shape quality of community life. He contributes to CivicInquire as a research collaborator, bringing expertise in community-level policy analysis and the social dimensions of urban environments.

Record 07 · 08
Skyler Hammond

Skyler Hammond

Web Support

Sky Hammond is Communications Officer at the Future Cities Institute at the University of Waterloo. In this role, Sky leads communications and content strategy across FCI's research initiatives, translating complex research for public, practitioner, and policy audiences. On CivicInquire, Sky oversees the platform's communications and ensures its tools and findings are accessible and clearly presented to the communities they are designed to serve.

Record 08 · 08
Nick Mayburry

Nick Mayburry

Web Support

Nick Mayburry is the Communications Co-Ordinator at the Future Cities Institute, where he shapes the Institute's digital presence and multimedia strategy. He brings over a decade of experience in animation, motion design, and multimedia creation, including contributions to three Emmy award-winning productions and animation on global franchises. On CivicInquire, Nick brings that visual storytelling craft to the platform's communications, helping present its tools and findings with polish and clarity.

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What is CivicInquire?

CivicInquire is an open-access digital platform and policy repository dedicated to supporting evidence-based, actionable, and aligned solutions to homelessness and housing challenges across Canada. The platform was developed and is maintained by an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Waterloo, with support from the Faculties of Environment and Health, the Future Cities Institute, and external grant funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

CivicInquire brings together homelessness and housing planning, policy, and strategy information from across the country in one place, providing researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and advocates with the tools and resources needed to understand and act on Canada's homelessness policy landscape. The platform features a national policy dashboard, a searchable policy database, and a curated collection of research articles, infographics, and summaries.

Who can use this platform?

CivicInquire is open access, meaning it is free to use for everyone whether you're a policymaker, municipal representative, urban planner, public health professional, healthcare provider, social worker, housing developer, researcher, advocate, or someone interested in housing and/or homelessness issues that may be affecting your community!

What can I use this platform for?

CivicInquire and its tools can be used in a number of ways. The policy database allows users to search for housing and homelessness plans, policies, and strategies by location or time period, and to conduct comparative or academic policy analysis. The platform's knowledge mobilization resources provide access to policy briefs, research summaries, and study infographics drawn from Canadian research, including work produced by the University of Waterloo team. The national policy dashboard allows users to track developments in housing and homelessness policy across Canada over time.

How can I learn more about the platform, stay in touch, or become more involved?

Subscribe to the Future Cities Institute mailing list to receive updates on platform developments, new tools and resources, housing and homelessness research, and opportunities to collaborate on community-oriented research projects.

How large is the policy database?

The CivicInquire database contains over 2,500 direct links to housing and homelessness policies, plans, and strategies from municipalities and governments across Canada. Users can search the database using simple keyword searches or advanced filtering options.

CivicInquire is live

Stop hunting. Start searching.

CivicInquire is free to use. If your municipality, classroom or organization is working on homelessness, the record is one search away.

Search CivicInquire →

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