23 / 36
20 1 6 WA I T I NG L I S T S S URV E Y R E POR T
2 3
Variability
Waiting list management practices and technology vary widely between Ontario’s 47 service
managers. There is also variability within and between some service managers’ portfolios.
The number of new applications reported is likely an underestimate as the data on the number of new
applications for some service managers does not include households who applied and were housed in
the same year due to the technology limitations of their waiting list management systems.
This variability, coupled with the absence of a shared database system and differences in human
resource, financial, and technical capacity between service managers, makes it difficult to ensure
direct comparability between areas
23
.
23.
The definitions of applicant statuses such as “transfer”, “pending”, “cancelled”, “housed”, or “household” may vary between service
managers and can impact comparison. Similarly, service managers may define “modified units” differently. Service manager cate-
gorization of applicants by household composition or size of unit can impact their ability to accurately report by household type. For
example, if a service manager categorizes applicants by the size of the unit requested (and not the composition of the household),
some respondents may be unable to separate couples without children from single adults because both household types are eligible
for the same size of unit. In other instances, service managers may categorize childless couples in the family category, inflating the
number of families reported.