The process and politics of community-based research with people currently homeless

This article describes the process of designing and conducting a multifaceted project aimed at describing pathways into homeless-ness in Toronto, Canada. It outlines lessons learned while conducting community-based research on a topic in the midst of increasing political focus and public awareness. The process is broken down chronologically and described sequentially: how the design integrated quantitative and qualitative approaches to data collection, how community stakeholder involvement was introduced early and maintained throughout, how data collection was facilitated how data were analyzed and presented, and how policy recommendations were generated and disseminated.