Homelessness and open city data

Abstract

Homelessness is a global issue that continues to affect the developed and developing world. The absence of comprehensive data collection and measurement of homelessness has led to a general lack of understanding of the global homeless. Improving our knowledge of homelessness requires information that reflects the reality of homelessness and housing exclusion. In this chapter, we review homeless data that is openly available from 14 global cities. With the use of ISO 37120 and open city data, we analysed the extent to which homeless data is standardized, consistent and comparable and the validity of the ISO 37120 indicators in the context of this homeless data. The availability, accessibility and formatting of the open city data are directly compared using ISO 37120 shelter-themed city indicators (ISO 37120. ISO37120: Sustainable development of communities-Indicators for city services and quality of life, 2014) and the City Indicator Data Openness Measure (CIDOM). We found that the majority of the homeless data could be placed into two general categories: homeless profiles and homeless services. There is no standard data model between cities, and periodicity of data collection varied. When directly compared using CIDOM, Toronto came out as the city with the most comprehensive dataset for each of the ISO 37120 shelter indicators. ISO 37120 shelter indicators do provide a standardized means to measure the homeless and unsheltered population of a city, but city Open Data lacks the robustness and utility to produce indicators. Underlying data is not fully published, raising questions of indicator value validity. In the global context, open city homeless data is currently not standardized, consistent or comparable. Show more