Reaching Home: Canada's Homelessness Strategy - The Government of Canada announces strategy to reduce chronic homelessness by 50% over the next ten years

TORONTO, June 11, 2018 /CNW/ - Homelessness has an economic and social impact on every community in Canada. The Government of Canada is committed to helping those who are in need and believes that one homeless Canadian is one too many.

Today, the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, announced the Government of Canada will be making bold changes to the federal strategy to prevent and reduce homelessness. Reaching Home, the Government of Canada's redesigned homelessness strategy, will double support for communities to address the needs of those experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

Through Reaching Home, the Government of Canada will reinforce its community-based approach, delivering funding directly to municipalities and local service providers. The strategy's reach will also expand to new communities. New communities will be added through an application process to be launched later this year. This expansion will not affect the funding received by the existing 61 Designated Communities.

Communities participating in Reaching Home will work toward a 50% reduction in chronic homelessness over the next 10 years. Building on the successful adoption of Housing First as a best practice, the Government will work with communities to develop and deliver data-driven system plans with clear outcomes. This new outcomes-based approach will give communities greater flexibility to identify, test, and apply innovative solutions and evidence-based practices that achieve results for vulnerable Canadians

Reaching Home funding will also provide communities with the tools they need to deliver systems plans, coordinated access to services, and better local data.

Reaching Home is part of Canada's first-ever National Housing Strategy?a 10-year $40-billion plan to lift hundreds and thousands of Canadians out of housing need, resulting in up to 100,000 new housing units and 300,000 repaired or renewed housing units. This will create a new generation of housing in Canada. Our plan will promote diverse communities. It will build housing that is sustainable, accessible, mixed-income, and mixed-use. We will build housing that is fully integrated into the community?close to transit, close to work, and close to public services.The National Housing Strategy is part of the Government of Canada's plan to build a more equal Canada for all, including the most vulnerable?one where women and men are empowered to make positive changes that benefit their own lives, and our economy as a whole.

Quotes

"Everyone deserves a safe place to call home. That is why I'm proud to announce Reaching Home?the redesigned federal homelessness strategy. This is an exciting historic milestone towards achieving our ambitious goal of reducing chronic homelessness in Canada by 50%."
?The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development

"As Chair of the Advisory Committee on Homelessness, I'm pleased that the Committee's recommendations provided the building blocks for Reaching Home, the redesigned federal homelessness strategy announced today. By listening to each other, and in particular people with lived experience, and working together we can reduce homelessness in our communities."
?Adam Vaughan, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development

Quick Facts

• As part of the National Housing Strategy, the Government of Canada announced a total investment of $2.2 billion for homelessness over 10 years, building on Budget 2016 funding of $111.8 million over two years. By 2021?22, this will double annual investments compared to 2015?16.
• In 2016, investment in the Indigenous homelessness was doubled. Reaching Home will further increase funding to prevent and reduce Indigenous homelessness, and support the delivery of holistic and culturally-appropriate responses to the unique needs of indigenous peoples living in vulnerable conditions, including Indigenous women, youth and mothers with children.
• Over the past year, the Government of Canada consulted with municipalities, stakeholders, provinces, territories and Indigenous partners on how to improve the Homelessness Partnering Strategy (HPS) to better prevent and reduce homelessness across Canada. These consultations were guided by the work of an Advisory Committee of experts, stakeholders and those with lived experience of homelessness, chaired by Parliamentary Secretary (Housing and Urban Affairs) Adam Vaughan.
• Reaching Home will replace the existing Homelessness Partnering Strategy and will officially launch April 1, 2019.
• In Quebec, the Homelessness Partnering Strategy is delivered through a formal Canada-Quebec agreement that respects the jurisdiction and priorities of both governments in addressing homelessness. Since 2001, five agreements for joint implementation of federal homelessness programming have been concluded, including the current agreement for 2014?2019. In order to implement Reaching Home and allocate funds in Quebec beyond April 1, 2019, negotiations will be undertaken with the Quebec government with the objective of concluding a sixth Canada-Quebec agreement.

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Backgrounder

Reaching Home

Reaching Home is designed to support the goals of the National Housing Strategy, in particular, to support the most vulnerable Canadians in maintaining safe, stable and affordable housing and to reduce chronic homelessness nationally by 50% by 2027?2028. Reaching Home puts communities at the forefront of tackling homelessness. While Housing First remains the model supported by the Government of Canada, and an effective tool to reduce homelessness, we chose to give communities more flexibility in how they use their funding to meet local needs, including the needs of vulnerable populations such as young people, LGBTQ2 communities, women fleeing violence, racialized communities, veterans and persons with disabilities.

Engagement on the design of the modernized federal homelessness program

Over the past year, the Government of Canada consulted with stakeholders, provinces, territories, Indigenous partners, and people with lived experience of homelessness on how to modernize programming to better prevent and reduce homelessness across Canada. These consultations were guided by the work of an Advisory Committee of experts and stakeholders in the field of homelessness, and chaired by Parliamentary Secretary Adam Vaughan (Housing and Urban Affairs) and consisted of 10 roundtables across the country.

The Government also launched an online feedback survey that was open from July 17 to September 15, 2017 seeking input from all Canadians and organizations with ideas and suggestions on how to prevent and reduce homelessness in Canada.

Throughout the engagement activities undertaken in 2017, the Government heard from a wide diversity of individuals, organizations and partners across the country on how to better tackle homelessness. The Homelessness Partnering Strategy Engagement?What We Heard Report 2018 contains highlights from feedback received throughout the consultation process. The Government released the Advisory Committee on Homelessness' Final Report and the Homelessness Partnering Strategy?What We Heard Report on May 18, 2018.

Highlights of Reaching Home

Expanding the program's reach

Throughout the engagement process, the Government heard that the greatest asset of the current Homelessness Partnering Strategy is that it is a community-based program. Through Reaching Home, the Government will reinforce this approach, and expand program reach to new Designated Communities. New communities will be added through an open and transparent application process to be launched later in 2018. This expansion will not affect the funding received by the existing 61 Designated Communities, as funding for these communities will not decrease.

More flexibility for communities under an outcomes-based approach

The Government of Canada has heard that quickly providing people with independent and permanent housing first, and then providing additional supports and services, is a proven way to reduce homelessness. These approaches will continue to be a priority across communities, however we heard from stakeholders and community partners that greater flexibility in how funding could be used was needed.

Building on the successful adoption of Housing First as a best practice, the Government will work with communities to develop and deliver data-driven system plans with clear outcomes. This new outcomes-based approach will give communities greater flexibility to identify, test, and apply innovative solutions and evidence-based practices that achieve results for vulnerable Canadians, including the National Housing Strategy target of a 50 % reduction in chronic homelessness as well as prevention-based outcomes that stem the flow of at-risk communities into homelessness. This will keep decision making where it should be, at the local level, and will give communities greater flexibility to address local priorities, including using housing first approaches, homelessness prevention, and programming designed to meet the needs of different vulnerable populations (for example, youth, women and children fleeing violence, racialized communities, and veterans) for whom housing first investments may need to be supplemented by other investments and supports.

Addressing Indigenous homelessness

In alignment with the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Homelessness, the Government recognizes the need to address the over-representation of Indigenous people in Canada's homeless population. While Indigenous people are eligible for services under all funding streams of the program, through Reaching Home, the Government will increase dedicated funding for Indigenous-led homelessness initiatives to support the availability of culturally-appropriate services.

Addressing Homelessness in the territories

Reaching Home will create a new Territorial Homelessness stream that will collapse existing regional funding streams into a single envelope. This stream will retain the community-based nature of the program while offering more flexibility in how funding can be used to address the unique homelessness challenges in the territories.

Introduction of Coordinated Access

Reaching Home will support knowledge collection and sharing as well as introduce coordinated access as a program priority. Coordinated Access will help communities shift toward a more coordinated and systems-based approach to addressing homelessness. To support this transformation, federal funding will be provided to Designated Communities to help them implement coordinated access, including adopting the necessary Information Technology infrastructure. Adopting a federal focus on this approach was a key recommendation of the Advisory Committee on Homelessness. The goal of Coordinated Access is to help communities ensure fairness, prioritize people most in need of assistance, and match individuals to appropriate housing and services in a more streamlined and coordinated way. This will translate to better outcomes for individuals and for the community as a whole. Several Canadian communities have already made progress towards its implementation.

Shifting towards Coordinated Access also means that communities will gather more comprehensive data on their local homeless population. In time, communities will be able to establish baselines against which progress toward important outcomes?like the reduction of chronic homelessness?can be measured. This will allow them to identify trends so they can celebrate and share successes and determine where more focus is warranted.

SOURCE Employment and Social Development Canada