Our research team created the Housing First toolkit as part of a strategy to disseminate lessons learned from the At Home/Chez Soi project. We wanted to create a tool that was widely accessible and relevant to how people access and use information. A website seemed like the ideal vehicle for this toolkit. Our goal was to provide information and resources for people wanting to learn about Housing First programs and how to plan, implement, evaluate and sustain a Housing First program. To this end, we have created 5 modules (overview, plan, implement, evaluate and sustain) that can be found both at the homepage of the toolkit website and as a drop down menu at the top of the screen anywhere on the website. You will notice that by highlighting any one of the modules on the top drop down menu you will find links to different sections of the modules. The top drop down menu is useful for finding particular information relevant to your own interest in Housing First.
The modules – with the exception of the overview module – are organized into overview, tasks, challenges and strategies, spotlight, checklist and additional resource sections. The overview module is intended to give users an overview of Housing First and is organized into overview and key questions sections. We created the overview sections to give a broad outline of what is contained in each particular module. The tasks sections should give a comprehensive task list of the various components of a particular stage of a Housing First program. To make the tasks section concrete and easy to implement we have created abbreviated checklists that accompany the tasks sections. The challenges and strategies sections draw heavily on the experience of stakeholders of the At Home/Chez Soi project and presents the challenges experienced by teams and the strategies these teams put into practice to overcome these challenges. The spotlight sections tell the story of specific Housing First programs that have innovated particular aspects of the model to their local context. The additional resource sections provide helpful tools to support various stages of Housing First programs. There are helpful documents that have been developed by various stakeholders that will be useful to teams at different stages of a Housing First program as well as users interested in getting more information about Housing First.
Housing First interventions are complex and often involve challenging existing systems of care at multiple levels – from the individual to community to three levels of government. Part of the value of this toolkit is that it reflects a culture of “learning as we go” that was important in the At Home/Chez Soi Project. Developing expertise invariably involves making mistakes, facing challenges and collaborating with diverse groups of people to find solutions to common problems. This toolkit documents the lessons learned from the At Home/Chez Soi project across 5 sites in Canada. It is our hope that these lessons – and commensurate resources – will be of use in helping your community to plan, implement, evaluate and sustain a Housing First program.