The crisis starts before the streets

In Plain Sight

The numbers are clear. Youth homelessness often begins before adulthood. The timing, government spending, care-system pathways, and housing pressures show why prevention and earlier intervention matters.

This page presents the scale and timing of the problem; the full prevention solution is under What Works.

20%

of emergency-shelter users in Canada are youth aged 13 to 24. (ESDC, 2017)

40,000+

young people are estimated to be experiencing homelessness in Canada over the course of this year. (Homeless Hub, n.d.)

46%

Nearly half of chronically homeless adults first experienced homelessness before turning 25. (Homeless Hub, 2025)

1 in 3

More than one-third of youth placed by child protection services experienced homelessness in the first years following placement. (Goyette et al., 2024)

330+ million

At least 330 million people are experiencing homelessness worldwide, according to UN figures reiterated in July 2026. (UN-Habitat, 2026)

40.1%

About 40% of participating youth first experienced homelessness before the age of 16. (Gaetz et al., 2016)

15.7

The average age of first leaving home was 15.7, during the secondary-school years. (Gaetz et al., 2016)

57.8%

Over half of participating youth reported previous involvement with child-protection services. (Nichols et al., 2017)

16.7%

In 2023, 75 of 449 Canadian communities with emergency shelter services reportedly had youth-specific services. (Gaetz, 2026)

1 in 4

Only 24.8% of young people leaving care in Quebec had graduated from secondary school by age 19. (Goyette et al., 2020)

1 in 4

One in four Montreal renters reported difficulty paying rent in 2025. (Léger & Vivre en Ville, 2026)

~$800

is the average cost per youth participant receiving Upstream support for a year. That is not a lot to screen students and save lives. (COH, 2025)

40%

The Geelong Project, a COSS-based upstream prevention model, has been reported to reduce youth homelessness by 40%. (CAEH, 2018)

$53,144

Depending on the study, homelessness-related services can cost approximately $53,144 to $95,284 per person annually. (AppEco, 2026; COH, 2025)

28.2%

of participating youth experiencing homelessness identified as members of racialized communities. (Gaetz et al., 2016)

30.6%

of participating homeless youth identified as Indigenous. (Gaetz et al., 2016)

25-40%

is the commonly estimated percentage of 2SLGBTQIA+ youth that make up the youth homelessness population within Canadian literature. (Abramovich et al., 2025)

Youth homelessness starts earlier than many people think

Young people may still be attending school while experiencing hidden homelessness, family violence, housing instability, poverty, untreated distress, or difficult transitions out of care. They may not yet use homelessness services. They may not identify as homeless. They may not tell an adult what is happening.

Child protection, mental health, and service gaps

Youth homelessness is deeply connected to child protection, mental health, and service-system gaps. The statistics above show that many young people are already known to public systems before homelessness becomes visible. The moral and policy problem is not that no one ever saw them. It is that seeing did not always become coordinated support.

Why schools appear in the data

Schools are one of the few systems that have consistent contact with young people during the period when homelessness risk often first appears. Absenteeism, exhaustion, hunger, withdrawal, behavioural changes, academic decline, instability, and disconnection can all appear in school before a young person enters a formal crisis system.

References

Statistic sources.

ESDC, 2017. Employment and Social Development Canada. (2017). The national shelter study 2005-2014: Emergency shelter use in Canada. Government of Canada. https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2017/edsc-esdc/Em12-17-2017-eng.pdf

Homeless Hub, n.d.. Homeless Hub. (n.d.). Youth homelessness overview. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. https://homelesshub.ca/book/youth-employment-toolkit/overview/youth-homelessness-overview/

Homeless Hub, 2025. Homeless Hub. (2025). Who is homeless in Canada? Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. https://homelesshub.ca/collection/homelessness-101/who-is-homeless-in-canada/

Goyette et al., 2024. Goyette, M., Blanchet, A., Bellot, C., Boisvert-Viens, J., & Fontaine, A. (2024). Itinérance, judiciarisation et marginalisation des jeunes ex-placés au Québec [Fiche-résumé de l’étude parue en 2022]. Chaire de recherche sur l’évaluation des actions publiques à l’égard des jeunes et des populations vulnérables. https://chairejeunesse.ca/productions/fiche-resume-itinerance-judiciarisation-marginalisation-jeunes-ex-places-quebec/

UN-Habitat, 2026. United Nations Human Settlements Programme. (2026, July 21). General Assembly adopts declaration to accelerate action on the New Urban Agenda. https://unhabitat.org/news/21-jul-2026/general-assembly-adopts-declaration-to-accelerate-action-on-the-new-urban-agenda

Gaetz et al., 2016. Gaetz, S., O’Grady, B., Kidd, S., & Schwan, K. (2016). Without a home: The national youth homelessness survey. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press. https://homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/WithoutAHome-final.pdf

Nichols et al., 2017. Nichols, N., Schwan, K., Gaetz, S., Redman, M., French, D., Kidd, S., & O’Grady, B. (2017). Child welfare and youth homelessness in Canada: A proposal for action. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press. https://homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/ChildWelfare-PolicyBrief-final_0.pdf

Gaetz, 2026. Gaetz, S. (2026). Focusing on prevention and early intervention in crisis-driven homelessness systems: Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater [Conference presentation]. Queensland Youth Housing Coalition. https://www.qyhc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Prof-Stephen-Gaetz-Dont-Throw-the-Baby-out-with-the-Bathwater.pdf

Goyette et al., 2020. Goyette, M., Blanchet, A., Bellot, C., Boisvert-Viens, J., & Fontaine, A. (2020). Les coûts de la sous-scolarisation des jeunes placés. Chaire-réseau de recherche sur la jeunesse du Québec. https://www.chairejeunesse.ca/sites/default/files/2021-04/CR%C3%89VAJ%2C%20CRJ%2C%202020.pdf

Léger & Vivre en Ville, 2026. Léger, & Vivre en Ville. (2026). Le marché locatif résidentiel: Québec—Étude 2025. Vivre en Ville. https://vivreenville.org/media/1683261/Vivre-en-Ville_E%CC%81tude_Marche-locatif_QC_2025-VF.pdf

COH, 2025. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. (2025). Upstream Canada: Preventing youth homelessness and school disengagement, 2022-2023 report. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. https://homelesshub.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/COH-UPSTREAM-2022-2023-Report-011725.pdf

CAEH, 2018. Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. (2018, August 29). Going upstream to prevent youth homelessness. https://caeh.ca/going-upstream/

AppEco, 2026. AppEco. (2026, August 14). Mise à jour de l’étude sur l’itinérance au Québec : Données, méthode et résultats [Presentation prepared for the Union des municipalités du Québec]. https://umq.qc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/umq2-mise-a-jour-de-letude-sur-litinerancefinal20260903-2.pdf

Abramovich et al., 2025. Abramovich, A., Elkington, N., Silberberg, M., Pang, N., & Bonato, S. (2025). Building a comprehensive understanding of 2SLGBTQ+ youth homelessness: A scoping review. International Journal for Equity in Health, 24, Article 350. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-025-02740-8