Niagara triples its outreach workers to aid homeless
Expansion to 15 people allows services to cover ‘everywhere, not just one city’
More homelessness outreach workers are being deployed in Niagara than ever, as the Region strives to meet the needs of individuals with nowhere to call home.
Working with partner agencies, Niagara
Region tripled its number of homelessness outreach workers to 15 in the past month to assist an increasing number of homeless people throughout the peninsula.
“That is significant growth,” said Shelly Mousseau, homelessness program manager for Gateway Residential and Community Support Services, one of three agencies running outreach initiatives for the Region.
“It allows us to cover everywhere, not just one city. We can have a body in pretty much every community in Niagara.”
Niagara Region’s homelessness services director, Cathy Cousins, said Gateway is leading the Region’s outreach program, while working with Port Cares to take care of homeless people in Niagara’s southern municipalities, and with RAFT to assist homeless youths.
Cousins said the program expansion was partly made possible with provincial funding to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus, as well as enhanced municipal funding. That
allows outreach workers wearing personal protective equipment to check on the health of the people they visit, while helping them find long-term accommodations.
Niagara Regional Police, too, have been pitching in to support outreach workers as they visit encampments, such as one that has been set up in Niagara Falls, she added. Mousseau said concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic have exacerbated Niagara’s homelessness problem.
“As individuals get nervous about social distancing and disease, they have a tendency to move rough, and we wanted to make sure we had enhanced opportunities to connect with those people,” she said.
Mousseau said the increased manpower will allow the agencies place even more people in transitional housing facilities, and “that’s our ultimate goal.”
“We’ve been able to really focus on that more because we have the ability to connect with people more often,” she said.
Their efforts are already having an impact. Cousins said the agencies are close to finding housing for two people who had been staying in the Niagara Falls encampment.
Meanwhile, Mousseau said, outreach workers also found a way to help another person who was sleeping rough, although that individual previously declined mental and physical health services that were offered.
“This individual had severe mental health problems and was battling addictions — mental illness caused the individual to physically harm himself, causing him to need surgery immediately, following this the individual needed mental health care as well,” Mousseau added in an email.
She said outreach workers eventually managed to connect the person with programs offered at Gateway that help people learn to live independently.
“Following this, the individual moved into the Region’s Home for Good supportive housing program, this provided permanent, safe, affordable housing and the client is now living in his home community successfully,” she said.
Cousins said she couldn’t estimate the number of people currently sleeping rough.
“It is difficult to quantify or estimate those sleeping rough or hidden homeless,” she said. “This has always been a difficult number to determine, and many experts have worked to understand a method to achieve that.”
Although a point-in-time count conducted in March, 2018 determined 625 people were homeless within Niagara, a new, similar count scheduled for this year has been postponed until 2021 due to the pandemic. Allan.Benner@niagaradailies.com 905-225-1629 | @abenner1