“I feel like I’m in a revolving door, and COVID has made it spin a lot faster”: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth experiencing homelessness in Toronto, Canada

Amanda Noble; Benjamin Owens; Naomi Thulien; Amanda Suleiman

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0273502

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJanuary 14, 2022
28 Feb 2022 Decision Letter - Muhammad Abdel-Gawad, Editor PONE-D-22-01338“I feel like I’m in a revolving door, and COVID has made it spin a lot faster”: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth experiencing homelessness in Toronto, CanadaPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Noble, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 14 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Muhammad Abdel-Gawad, MD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Thank you for stating the following in the Funding Section of your manuscript: "This work was funded by Making the Shift (MtS) Network of Centres of Excellence, Grant R900206525." We note that you have provided funding information. However, funding information should not appear in the Funding section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: "This work was funded by Making the Shift (MtS) Network of Centres of Excellence, Grant R900206525 (https://makingtheshiftinc.ca). The funding was awarded to AN. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 3. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. For more information about our data policy, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability. Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. Any potentially identifying patient information must be fully anonymized. Important: If there are ethical or legal restrictions to sharing your data publicly, please explain these restrictions in detail. Please see our guidelines for more information on what we consider unacceptable restrictions to publicly sharing data: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Note that it is not acceptable for the authors to be the sole named individuals responsible for ensuring data access. We will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide in your cover letter. Additional Editor Comments: - The manuscript is too long, try to shorten it. - Use continuous line numbers (do not restart the numbering on each page). - Table 1 and table 2 are results, not methods. so, remove them from methodology section and add them to results section. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273502.r001
Revision 1
4 Apr 2022 Author Response Thank you to the editor and reviewers for your thoughtful comments on our manuscript. We address each of the comments in greater detail below. If there are any other comments or points that arise during the review process, please let us know. Journal Requirements: 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. a. The manuscript has been revised to conform to PLOS ONE’s style requirements, and the file names have been updated for this resubmission. Apologies for this mistake. 2. We note that you have provided funding information. However, funding information should not appear in the Funding section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. a. All funding-related text has been removed from the manuscript. The funding statement provided in the online submission form is accurate and up-to-date, and does not need to be updated. 3. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. a. We have modified our data availability statement and added the University of Toronto’s Social Science Ethics Review Board as the contact for anonymized data. The revised statement is as follows: “Data cannot be shared publicly as participants did not consent to the release of transcripts in a public domain. In addition, interview data holds sensitive information from youth experiencing homelessness and the staff who serve them in Toronto, Ontario. These populations are small, and thus publicly sharing data would compromise the level of risk of participating in the research—particularly given the marginalization that youth experiencing homelessness already experience and the ways in which staff discussed their places of employment. Researchers who wish to access anonymized interview data are encouraged to contact the University of Toronto’s Social Science Research Ethics Board to request access at ethics.review@utoronto.ca, +1 (416) 946-3273.” Additional Editor Comments: 1. The manuscript is too long, try to shorten it. a. We have substantially revised the manuscript to reduce the length. As a result, we have reduced the word count of the body text from 8641 words to 6710. 2. Use continuous line numbers (do not restart the numbering on each page). a. Apologies for this. Continuous line numbers have been added to the manuscript. 3. Table 1 and Table 2 are results, not methods. So, remove them from methodology section and add them to results section. a. Thank you for pointing out this mistake. Tables 1 and 2 have been moved to the results section. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273502.r002
21 Jul 2022 Decision Letter - Baltica Cabieses, Editor PONE-D-22-01338R1“I feel like I’m in a revolving door, and COVID has made it spin a lot faster”: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth experiencing homelessness in Toronto, CanadaPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Noble, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 04 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Baltica Cabieses, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: (No Response) ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Partly Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: N/A Reviewer #2: N/A ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Introduction is clear and presents background that justifies the research problem and the relevance of the research. The methodology is clear and rigorously presented, it is suggested to explain an ethical section where the approval of the ethics committee and the verbal informed consent given by the participants are mentioned, given the vulnerability of the study population. The presentation of results and discussion is clear and attractive. When the case of 2SLGBTIQ+ youth is presented, it is recommended to have first-person quotes from their experience, not only focused on the discourse of the shelter workers. It would be interesting to include a reflection from the gender perspective on the women experience who participated less than man in the study. It is suggested to share the limitations of the study in the discussion section if they exist. In the final list of references the year of publication corresponds to the APA style, it is needed to change the references to Vancouver format. Reviewer #2: Congratulations on a very interesting study that will surely contribute to asses and mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the youth experiencing homelessness. It is a substantial contribution that the results are detailed according to the differentiated experiencies of subpopulations. Some minor aspects could be improved in the manuscript, which will be discussed below. Regarding the sections where the experience of subpopulations is developed, the one that adresses the 2SLGBTQ+, lacks the perspective of the 2SLGBTQ+ population interviewed, as only staff quotes were incorporated. Also, according to the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research, an identification should be added to each quotation, for example, a participant number (protecting the anonimity of the participants). Along the report, some minor language editing is required, for example, with repeated words like "support" and "impacts". Finally, a few format aspects should be adressed, like the size of the numbers in the references and the incorporation of page numbers. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273502.r003
Revision 2
2 Aug 2022 Author Response We are very grateful to the editor and reviewers for your thoughtful comments on our manuscript. We address each of the comments in greater detail below and in our 'Response to Reviewers' document. If there are any other comments or points that arise during the review process, please let us know. Reviewer #1’s comments: 1. It is suggested to explain an ethical section where the approval of the ethics committee and the verbal informed consent given by the participants are mentioned, given the vulnerability of the study population. a. Thank you for this comment. We have added a subsection on research ethics to the methodology section of the manuscript where we detail the study’s ethics approval and the verbal informed consent process. 2. When the case of 2SLGBTIQ+ youth is presented, it is recommended to have first-person quotes from their experience, not only focused on the discourse of the shelter workers. a. This is a very important point raised by both reviewers. The section on 2SLGBTQ+ youth’s experiences has been updated to include quotes from 2SLGBTQ+ youth themselves, who describe experiences of isolation and difficulty accessing services. 3. It is suggested to share the limitations of the study in the discussion section if they exist. a. The manuscript has been updated to include a section on limitations alongside the discussion. This section addresses the study’s limitations and suggests potential areas for future research. 4. It would be interesting to include a reflection from the gender perspective on the women experience who participated less than man in the study. a. Thank you very much for this comment. While an analysis of the gendered impacts of the pandemic for youth experiencing homelessness is important, it is unfortunately a limitation of this study given the interview protocol and sample. We have added this as a limitation in the limitations section of the manuscript and call for future research to address this gap. 5. In the final list of references the year of publication corresponds to the APA style, it is needed to change the references to Vancouver format. a. The reference list has been updated to be consistent with the Vancouver citation style guide. Reviewer #2’s comments: 1. Regarding the sections where the experience of subpopulations is developed, the one that addresses the 2SLGBTQ+, lacks the perspective of the 2SLGBTQ+ population interviewed, as only staff quotes were incorporated. a. Thank you for this very important comment. As mentioned above, we have added quotations from 2SLGBTQ+ youth to this section, where they share first-hand their experiences of isolation and difficulty accessing supports. 2. Also, according to the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research, an identification should be added to each quotation, for example, a participant number (protecting the anonymity of the participants). a. The manuscript has been revised to include unique participant codes for each quotation. Quotes from youth are prefixed by ‘Y’, and quotes from staff are prefixed by ‘ST’. This coding formula is described in the methods section of the manuscript. 3. Along the report, some minor language editing is required, for example, with repeated words like "support" and "impacts". a. Thank you for catching this. The manuscript has been revised to minimize repeated words. 4. Finally, a few format aspects should be addressed, like the size of the numbers in the references and the incorporation of page numbers. a. The reference list has been edited for consistency in font size. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273502.r004
10 Aug 2022 Decision Letter - Baltica Cabieses, Editor “I feel like I’m in a revolving door, and COVID has made it spin a lot faster”: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth experiencing homelessness in Toronto, Canada PONE-D-22-01338R2 Dear Dr. Noble, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Baltica Cabieses, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273502.r005
Formally Accepted
12 Aug 2022 Acceptance Letter - Baltica Cabieses, Editor PONE-D-22-01338R2 “I feel like I’m in a revolving door, and COVID has made it spin a lot faster”: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth experiencing homelessness in Toronto, Canada Dear Dr. Noble: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Baltica Cabieses Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273502.r006

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