More and more the narrative around addressing homelessness is finally changing from one of “addressing homelessness” to “ending homelessness”. This is an important shift as our language establishes the outcomes we expect and anticipate. So much of our work from the 1980s until today has been band-aid solutions, providing comfort measures to those while homeless, food and shelter, yet has not necessarily addressed the root issue – lack of a home.
But indeed, you now see this shift in the language of service providers, funders, and governments. Plans to end homelessness, programs that end homelessness, and solutions focused around housing and housing first. This is a common goal and I believe it is a realistic one, and the right one to target. The issue is, what exactly do we mean when we speak of “ending homelessness”. Recall, of course, that the definition of ‘homeless’ itself is quite complex. We can all agree that someone sleeping under a bridge is homeless, and most understand shelters as still being homeless, but what about couch surfing? What about living with one’s pimp? Therefore, when we assess whether homelessness has been ended, we need to be clear what type of homelessness we are talking about.
For the most part, when we are talking about ending homelessness, we are talking about eliminating rough sleeping, reducing shelter usage (particularly chronic usage), and making affordable housing with supports widely available, reducing other forms of temporary stay such as cells or hospital. This idea of ending homelessness is well represented in the recent article of the work of London CAReS in London, Ontario. The article speaks to moving 100 individuals from states of chronic or persistent homelessness to being housed, permanently. This still requires high levels of service and support, but is far less costly than cells, hospital, or shelter. Also, most of these individuals were not rough sleepers, but were still considered homeless by any recognized Canadian definition.
This is why I believe ending homelessness is possible. Yes, we will always need emergency shelters as a point of transition for people who are de-housed, but these should only be needed for a few hours or days of other, more desirable (and less expensive) forms of affordable and supported housing are available.
This post was republished with permission from Abe Oudshoorn, RN, PhD.