This guide was developed by the Government of Canada. It is intended to provide guidance to communities participating in the nationally-coordinated Point-in-Time (PiT) count, and other communities that wish to conduct comparable counts. It includes the standards for participation, the core screening and survey questions that are used across participating communities, and guidelines for implementing a PiT Count.

In this fourth edition of the Guide to PiT Counts in Canada, the Core Standards, Core Locations, Core Screening and Survey Questions, and guidelines have all been updated based on feedback from communities, as well as the others previously mentioned. The guidelines in this document were developed through a review of PiT Count practices used both across Canada and internationally, and with input from communities and the National PiT Count Working Group. It builds on the existing work on PiT counts by the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH) as well as the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the United States.