7-3a Listening - Homelessness

There's no question that homelessness exists, and the factors that can lead people down that path are easily identified, as we read about. Abuse at home, either physical or psychological, substance dependency, low or inadequate income, and having a mental disability can all contribute to homelessness. But what is being done about it in Canada? Is there a comprehensive plan from the federal government? Well, at this time, much like its stance on poverty and unlike so many other industrialized nations, Canada surprisingly has no real direct policy on the issue of homelessness prevention or elimination. There are, however, some measures in place that can help those who are on their way to becoming or are currently homeless run by the Canadian government through the Homelessness Partnering Strategy, or HPS, which includes a number of services that those at risk of becoming or who are currently homeless can access for help.

There's no question that homelessness exists, and the factors that can lead people down that path are easily identified, as we read about. Abuse at home, either physical or psychological, substance dependency, low or inadequate income, and having a mental disability can all contribute to homelessness.

But what is being done about it in Canada? Is there a comprehensive plan from the federal government? Well, at this time, much like its stance on poverty and unlike so many other industrialized nations, Canada surprisingly has no real direct policy on the issue of homelessness prevention or elimination. There are, however, some measures in place that can help those who are on their way to becoming or are currently homeless run by the Canadian government through the Homelessness Partnering Strategy, or HPS, which includes a number of services that those at risk of becoming or who are currently homeless can access for help.

The Homelessness Partnering Strategy was started in 2007 and replaced other programs that had existed beforehand. And since that time, the government has approved nearly $750 million of funding through HPS for projects that help prevent homelessness. Under the Canadian government's current economic action plan, there will be an additional $120 million available per year from 2014 up until 2019 when there is an option to renew and continue the program.

The HPS is a community-based program that provides direct financial support to designated communities throughout Canada, currently numbering 61 through all provinces and territories, and tries to get these communities to work with other partners to create individualized plans that best suit the needs of the homeless in that area. In this way, homelessness is dealt with locally and there is less involvement from the federal government beyond funding.

A crucial step in the planning process is gathering information about the target population that needs help. Issues and priorities are identified and the funds collected through HPS are directed accordingly. These communities submitted plans for up to the year 2014 and highlights of them show that all have long-term plans they wish to implement and over three-quarters of them will be trying to actively place people into housing in order to reduce homelessness there. The main groups focused on will be those that are least likely to help themselves, namely families with children, youth, and those with disabilities, including mental illness.

Overall, it has a housing-first approach that hopes to see its primary purpose to first give homeless people a place to reside other than the streets and then provide them with what they need to recover from their problems and achieve stability in their lives. In order to be eligible to receive funds from the Homelessness Partnering Strategy, communities must meet certain guidelines. Organizations must develop their community plans, then have them approved by community advisory boards. However, these plans also need to be constantly modified to reflect the changing needs of the community.

The plans should identify gaps that exist which are causing and perpetuating the homelessness in a region, address how the community intends on maintaining long-term solutions, and most importantly for the HPS, show how the community will be able to match a minimum of $1 for every dollar funded by the government through the Homelessness Partnering Strategy. The best plans are those that look to work beyond the immediate emergency needs of the homeless and will try to actually stabilize and improve their situation. Once they have the green light from a community advisory board, plans are put into action.

There are a great number of action plans proposed and enacted throughout the 61 communities that are covered by the Homelessness Partnering Strategy. However, there are also nationwide initiatives that can be applied as well. The first of these national funding streams are the Federal Horizontal Pilot Projects. This funding is used among various departments of the federal government, most notably Health Canada, Veterans Affairs Canada, and Justice Canada, working together to create joint projects that focus on issues related to their particular area of interest, such as corrections, employment, mental health, family violence, or immigration, as it relates to homelessness.

The hope is to synchronize programs that exist among federal departments so they can work better together for common goals and coordinate well with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, which is the department of the government responsible for developing, managing, and delivering social programs and services, and oversees the Homelessness Partnering Strategy. A second funding stream for HPS projects is the Homelessness Knowledge Development, which is more about gathering detailed information about homelessness than programs aimed at eliminating it.

It focuses on research and analysis of data and then taking that data and disseminating or spreading it to the agencies and other programs that need the information to plan solutions and strategies. Organizations that can apply to get funding in order to do this are non-profit organizations, municipalities, public health institutions, and educational organizations. A further similar funding stream is the National Homelessness Information System, or NHIS, which also aims at gathering information about the homeless but focuses mainly on the number of homeless actively making use of emergency shelters in Canadian cities.

The NHIS has created and distributed a particular software application to shelters so that the information about homeless residents can be as accurately collected as possible. All the data flows back to the NHIS and allows them to develop a picture of homelessness for the whole nation. A final funding stream supervised by the Homelessness Partnering Strategy is the Surplus Federal Real Property for Homelessness Initiative, which, if anyone is wondering, is known as the SFRPHI. Its purpose is to take federal real properties defined as a property owned, leased, or otherwise managed by the federal government, which are surplus. That is, they don't serve a specific purpose or have a planned future use. And they make these properties available to community organizations, non-profit companies, and different levels of government.

Most interesting is that it only costs $1 for these properties to be accessed as long as the primary purpose or use of them is to help in the reduction of homelessness. One example in Alberta saw an old government post office valued at nearly $200,000 made available to an organization that turned it into low-income housing for families and those with disabilities and includes space for community services. So is the Homelessness Partnering Strategy working to keep people housed? Well, in 2011 in Montreal, Quebec, one project involved 280 people, all of whom were successfully housed.

And most importantly, two years later, nearly 80% of them were still off the streets. Many more results similar to this are showing that progress is being made and reductions in the number of homeless is proof that HPS is a valid approach to the problem. Other countries have taken a housing-first way of dealing with homelessness and have had a great deal of positive outcomes.