‘Educational opportunities’ to come from homelessness expert’s talk
A presentation next week in Niagara Falls by an international expert on homelessness is expected to help guide Niagara Region on its 10-year housing and homelessness action plan.
“We’re really excited about it,” said Cathy Cousins, the municipality’s director of homelessness services.
“I think we’re going to get some great educational opportunities out of it, and it will help us to make really good decisions in Niagara and use our money wisely.”
Iain De Jong will make a presentation Dec. 19 at 9:30 a.m. at Scotiabank Convention Centre.
The event is free to attend and is open to stakeholders who help the homeless plus politicians and people with an interest in the issue.
Cousins said “hundreds” of stakeholders, decision makers, developers and people actively involved in homelessness initiatives received an initial invitation to the event.
She said people who want to attend the Dec. 19 session can send a message on Niagara Region’s website — niagararegion.ca by clicking the Contact Us tab at the bottom of the page.
Niagara Region oversees homelessness programs in the peninsula; receives funding from federal, provincial and regional governments; designs the system and contracts it out to 22 agencies that deliver services on its behalf, said Cousins.
De Jong, of OrgCode Consulting, Inc., has travelled around the world and has consulted with communities to help them come up with strategies to effectively deal with homelessness.
Cousins said De Jong’s presentation follows a meeting he recently had with mayors, councillors and municipal chief administrative officers from across Niagara.
Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati described De Jong’s presentation, in a recent interview with The Niagara Falls Review, as “one of the most eye-opening and enlightening” he’s heard.
Cousins said because people who attended the recent session found it to be “so educational,” the consensus was to host another event “and make sure that all of the stakeholders and decision makers and those actively involved participate because we all want to be rowing … in the same direction here.”
“He truly is an international expert on homelessness,” she said of De Jong.
“He does a significant amount of work across Canada and in the U.S., as well as Australia and New Zealand.”
She said the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness — a national movement of people, organizations and communities working together to end homelessness —regularly use De Jong and his company to inform some of their decision making.
“The federal government has used him. The provincial government has used him. He’s very well respected.”
Cousins said the Dec. 19 event will also allow participants to share thoughts and ideas, and ask questions about what best practices Niagara should consider.
She said Niagara is “a little light in the funding” category when it comes to homelessness, “so we need to make sure that we make really good decisions with our limited resources.”
“This is an opportunity for everybody to understand what the best practices are and how their offerings, if you’re an agency, or your strategies, even if you’re a board of an agency … can align with those best practices, so that the work that we’re doing for the vulnerable people in Niagara is all aligned.”