[homeles_ot-l] A Housing Vision and Strategy for Canada - ATEH's FINA Submission

[Lynne Browne]

Please circulate & Use widely 

A Housing Vision and Strategy for Canada 

The Alliance to End Homelessness

Submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance
Pre-Budget Consultations, 2008

 

ATEH Recommendation:

The Alliance to End Homelessness recommends that a National Housing Strategy
be the cornerstone policy in the 2008 Budget, that it be entrenched in a
“housing vision” and imbedded in a new Canadian “Housing Ministry”
sufficiently resourced and empowered to act on affordable housing issues in
Canada and that it recognize the diversity of reasons that underlie becoming
homeless for the families and individuals who experience it across Canada
and establish a goal to end not reduce or manage homelessness.

Full report is attached and available in What’s New at HYPERLINK
"http://www.endhomelessnessottawa.ca/"http://www.endhomelessnessottawa.ca/ 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Alliance to End Homelessness (ATEH) recommends that a National Housing
Strategy be the cornerstone policy in the 2008 Budget. As a federal spending
priority this is an opportunity for the Government to make an outstanding
difference with the immediate creation a National Housing Strategy that is
entrenched in a “housing vision” and imbedded in a new Canadian “Housing
Ministry” that is sufficiently resourced and empowered to act on affordable
housing issues in Canada.  The diverse and extensive experience of the 70+
agencies who are ATEH members indicates that such a strategy is pivotal to
ending homelessness in Canada.

ATEH data analysis for 2004 to 2007 as reported in our Report Card on Ending
Homelessness in Ottawa shows a disturbingly flat trend in the impact of
current efforts, whether federal, provincial or municipal, to reduce, let
alone end, homelessness. It is this flat trend that focusses ATEH attention
in the federal Pre-Budget Consultaions on the urgent need for a National
Housing Strategy. The four year trends show that the number of people using
shelters in Ottawa remained relatively constant ranging from 8600 in 2004 to
a little over 9000 in 2007 and that the population numbers for men, women,
youth and famlies and children have also remained remarkably constant with
small fluctuations. Unfortunately, shelter bed use increased for the third
year in a row by 2007 with beds filled 18,540 more times in 2007 than in
2006. The four year trends in income and housing show little growth in
affordable units and modest increases in minimum wage and income supports.
It is no surprise that 1% of Ottawa’s population continues to experience
homelessness each year. Immediately alarming is the average length of a
person’s shelter stay which increased sharply by 13.9% in 2007 to 38 days,
the highest level over the four years, after successive decreases from 2004
to 2006.

A National Housing Strategy will of necessity include short, medium and long
term approaches and programs such as the federal Affordable Housing
Initiative (AHI) and Homelessness Partnering Strategy (HPS) which come to an
end in March 2009. The strategy will need to recognize and resource a
variety of approaches, including: community-based affordable housing,
housing with various levels of supports (transitional housing, supportive
housing, supported housing, and the service models such as Housing First to
assist that proportion of people who are chronically homeless with immediate
access to stable housing and the income and supports required to keep it. A
National Housing Strategy would also incorporate health and addictions
services including harm reduction services and provide for housing for
adults with special needs and frail elderly people in residential care
facilities such as domiciliary hostels. 

Of course, first-line and immediate emergency assistance will continue to be
needed through emergency shelters, outreach services and drop-in centres.
While the realities of creating and increasing the stock of affordable and
appropriate housing for low and moderate households in Canada will require a
range of approaches, over time such housing will greatly reduce the number
of families and individuals who require emergency assistance. In the
meanwhile, shorter-term approaches such as the current HPS (The Homelessness
Partnering Initiative, the Homelessness Accountability Network and the
Surplus Federal Real Property for Homelessness Initiative) remain
indispensable in communities across Canada but it is very important that
such programs reduce difficulties not create them. A persistent problem
identified by our member agencies is the short time frame for HPS program
funding and the inherent ‘project’ approach; a National Housing Strategy
will need to strengthen federal HPS efforts with longer term and sustained
funding. We respectfully suggest that a minimum of five years for instance,
will support communities in effectively planning and allocating resources
and provide the stability needed to lessen the impact of homelessness on
families, individuals and communities.

 

Lynne Browne

Coordinator, Alliance to End Homelessness (ATEH)
147 Besserer Street, Ottawa, ON K1N 6A7 
HYPERLINK "mailto:lbrowne at ysb.on.ca"lbrowne at ysb.on.ca,  613-241-7913 ext 205
www.endhomelessnessottawa.ca  

 

 


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