On May 12th Allyson Marsolais returned from her maternity leave to her role as Project Manager at the newly renamed Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH). We’ve had a week of transition and now I’ll be staying on in a new role as a Research Coordinator which is a very exciting opportunity. I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on what I’ve learned in the past 13 months.
The “homelessness landscape” changes quickly and is always evolving.
I’ve been out of “active” homelessness work since 2010 when I stopped teaching Homelessness in Canadian Society at Ryerson University in preparation for my focus on my PhD. The Toronto Disaster Relief Committee went virtual around the same time and folded a couple of years later. When I came to COH/Homeless Hub in 2013 I was amazed at how much had changed. Alberta is a leading player in the fight to end homelessness. Housing First is gaining wide support across the country, as are 5/10 Year Plans to End Homelessness. Point-in-Time Counts are being conducted widely and increasingly are seen to have value and significance.
And yet, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
No matter how much great work is being done across the country, we’re going to always be struggling to end homelessness until all levels of government get involved in building housing. Ideally, we need to see a return to a National Housing Strategy that focuses on building affordable housing.
I watched a great video last week from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities about this. It pointed out:
- 1/3 of Canadians are renters.
- In the last decade just 10% of new housing has been rental.
- 1 in 4 Canadians pay more for housing than they can afford (more than 30% of income on rent).
This has to change!!
Housing Solves Homelessness
From my first days of teaching workshops about homelessness or my course at Ryerson I’ve said “Housing Solves Homelessness”. It isn’t rocket science. The awesome research from At Home/Chez Soi has shown this to be true. The majority of people – and a significant majority at that – who are given housing WITH supports, remain housed after a year. And after two years. And after three! Everyone deserves housing (it is a human right) and that is the same for people experiencing homelessness as it is for anyone else.
I’ve used the Cushing Dolbeare quote here before but it is one that resonates with me so strongly. “Homelessness may not be only a housing problem but it is always a housing problem.” We need to address the lack of affordable (and safe and suitable and healthy) housing if we truly want to end homelessness in this country. And economically, this makes so much sense – housing is much cheaper than emergency services.
Research is Out There and More is Coming All the Time!
Since I started working here we’ve released books on Youth Homelessness, Aboriginal Homelessness and Housing First. We’ve also released reports on the State of Homelessness in Canada, the development and implementation of Promising Practices, Reimagining Youth Homelessness and a Housing First Framework for Youth. In 13 months!
Additionally, as a group (and it’s an amazing staff team that is always growing) we’ve also presented around the world on a wide variety of topics, redeveloped our entire website including creating a Solutions section, are working to ensure our site meets the needs of people with disabilities, are creating both a mobile platform and a French Hub, helped plan the first ever National Conference on Ending Homelessness research tracks (and are hard at work on the second) and have been updating resources and creating research summaries. We’ve also been blogging here at least three times a week, we’re active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and other social media sites. Oh, and you can also sign-up for our weekly newsletter for all the latest news!
And that’s to say nothing of our more than 80 individual, institutional and international partners. There are tons of people out there doing this work and the efforts are paying off.
The Wheel Has Been Invented…Now It Needs to be Replicated
One thing our research has shown me is that almost everything we need to know about ending homelessness is in place. Communities across this country have developed amazing responses to homelessness. Unfortunately, they lack in resources (financial, time and human) to both thoroughly evaluate their work and more importantly, share it with broader communities. Why should any community struggle to create a program that already exists successfully elsewhere? Why can’t models of response in one town be shared easily with those in the field in a thousand kilometres away? We try very hard here to spread the word of the great work that exists across the country because time will be saved if we can learn from each other rather than starting from scratch.
Finally…
These past 13 months have been an amazing opportunity for me as a team leader, a researcher, a writer/editor and a networker. I’m thrilled to be moving into the role of Research Coordinator and to be able to dedicate some significant time to addressing the issues we’ve been exploring including Aboriginal Homelessness, LGBTQ youth and Prevention. And I’m glad to welcome Allyson back to her role as Project Manager where I know she’ll continue to do the amazing work she did before!