It takes a lot of work to aid the homeless
Although more collaboration will be needed as Niagara region works toward its goal of ending chronic homelessness, service providers are instead competing against one another for limited regional funding.
Nevertheless, several of the eight agencies currently contracted to provide homelessness services for Niagara are already finding ways to work together despite the competition.
Niagara’s community services commissioner Adrienne Jugley said the Region is working to implement recommendations of a Homelessness Services System Review published in the spring, with a goal of creating a system “where ultimately … homelessness is seen as something that is rare, brief and nonreoccurring.”
“That’s the theme of everything we’re trying to do in the homelessness system,” she said.
Although enhanced collaboration between agencies will be required to meet the goals, several requests for proposals (RFP) being issued by the Region are creating competition between the agencies.
“The process of trying to secure funds from the Region is competition,” said Southridge Shelter’s acting director Samantha Kenny. “That’s what makes it challenging. Just the nature of securing funds to provide services, because it’s a competitive nature it does bring some challenges in order for us to collaborate better.”
The Region is currently issuing six RFPs, to selecting service providers for six priority areas — including prevention, outreach, shelter, transitional housing, and to deliver Niagara’s Housing First and its Home for Good supportive housing programs. Deadlines for submissions are set for Nov. 19 to Jan. 14.
Jugley described the RFP process as an opportunity for current and prospective service providers to “think about these categories of service and what they feel would really address the objectives.”
Despite the challenges, Kenny said agencies are “trying to collaborate to provide services because it’s the exact same people that we’re serving. We are trying to push collaboration big time,” she said. “It’s working to an extent.”
For instance, Southridge recently teamed up with The RAFT, hoping to implement diversion strategies used by the St. Catharines youth shelter for its adult clients.
It’s one of several partnership’s Southridge has formed.
Southridge’s Housing First and shelter coach supervisor David Michels said representatives from Ontario Works, Housing Help, Community Care and other organizations, as well as volunteer physicians visit the shelter to meet with clients.
“We’re all sitting at the table together with residents to kind of plot out some next steps for people. That is a cool collaboration that we have going,” he said.
Kenny said physicians as well as paramedics also visit the shelter, offering medical aid to clients who might otherwise not have access to primary health care.
“Some of our guys who are transient, they don’t have health cards,” she said. “There are so many cool things, and it’s not just open to current residents. It’s open to people who are struggling to access primary health care in the community.”
Michels said the shelter also focuses on people with stable housing as soon as possible, through the Niagara Region’s Housing First program.
He said the Region-funded program is for people who have experienced a significant amount of homelessness or have been unable to sustain long-term housing.
“It’s exactly that — we get housing first,” Michels said. “We’re going to meet somebody right where they’re at, get them housed and then we expand that network of support.”
Michels said that program has resulted in numerous success stories, among people he has worked with at the 55-bed shelter — the largest in Niagara.
He recalled a 24-year-old man who had been homeless sporadically for several years, staying in various locations all over southern Ontario.
As a result of the Housing First program, that client has now had stable housing for three years, living in a one-bedroom apartment while he completes his education.
Jugley said expanding the Housing First in years to come is one of several priorities for the Region, as it works to enhance services.
“Certainly, there are lots of good elements in our system and I don’t want to lose sight of that, but there are areas of transformation where we want to put additional focus,” she said.
“We want to continue to focus on Housing First, not only as a program but actually as an overarching approach to deliver all of our services,” Jugley said. “So, having a Housing First focus in our shelters … in our outreach efforts, we want to see more of that because that aligns with best practices.”
She said Built For Zero program, a national campaign to end chronic homelessness that Niagara recently joined, is another priority for the Region — using enhanced databases and better coordination between agencies.
Despite the needs within a region where homelessness services have been chronically underfunded by the provincial government, Jugley isn’t anticipating any significant budget increases to cover the costs of running programs in years to come.
For instance, she said the provincial government — which provides the bulk of the funding for local programs — was frozen at 2018 levels with only a “modest inflationary increase” anticipated for 2020.
“It’s not the amounts we’re looking for, which is to really address the allocation limitations relative to our local need,” Jugley said.