Homelessness lab and city agree on new approach to reduce family homelessness

The City of Ottawa is adopting a new approach to redressing family homelessness.

It’s called progressive engagement, a systemic response ranging from a light touch or nudge of assistance through to more complex and integrated interventions involving multiple agencies.

This new approach is three years in the making and based on solid research findings, experimentation among agencies and the city’s housing staff, and detailed analysis of best practices. It gives the broad swath of entities and agencies that interact with families at risk, and the practitioners at these service providers, a clear pathway to get help quickly for these families.

Stable homes break poverty cycle

It all started with the community associations in Ward 13 (Rideau-Rockcliffe) and Vanier agreeing that homelessness is a key determinant in inter-generational family poverty. Or, put another way, that a stable home is the foundation to breaking the poverty cycle, particularly for children.

The vehicle to address this complex problem in an integrated and system-wide manner was a Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)-funded Housing Lab. The lab was led and managed by Lansdowne Consulting with a two-year duration and a dedicated research team to develop a sound, data-driven problem analysis focused on Ward 13 and Vanier.

Lab facilitators engaged practitioners from several social agencies either specifically focused on homelessness or serving clients vulnerable to losing their housing to develop ideas for promoting significant change in the way housing services were delivered.

Early on, the lab unearthed the following key findings that directed further work:

• Many families in shelters eventually leave to live in private market housing. Couldn’t their admission to shelter have been prevented at the outset?
• Front line workers lacked voice. One front-line worker said, “I can tell you who’s about to become homeless, but nobody’s listening.” How do we get the system to be responsive, integrated and effective?
• Low-income families seeking rental units are often too slow off the mark–available units are taken before they can secure a lease. How do we speed up the process? Can the private sector help us with notifications of impending vacancies?
• The average stay in shelters (or overflow facilities) in Ottawa is well over 200 days. Can we move resources in front of the shelter door to prevent evictions or divert imminently-homeless families from shelters and also lower total costs?

One of the most significant innovations developed through the Lab was bringing together the agencies and city staff who could quickly resolve cases of families facing homelessness within the next 60 days.

Over the last year, the city has been operating a Rapid Response Table (RRT) pilot project in Ward 13. The RRT is made up of several organizations addressing cases in what has proven to be an effective manner during what was originally to be 100 days of learning.

Changing the system

The RRT is a mechanism for learning how the system can shift from being reactive to actively redirecting energy toward keeping families in the community.

The RRT has demonstrated that families facing homelessness can either be stabilized in their current home or be rehoused quickly and effectively if given flexible support geared to their particular needs. So much so, that the lessons learned in this pilot project are being transitioned and scaled up with a series of city-wide initiatives delivered through Ontario Works and local community resource centres.

Just as importantly, significant new financial and other resources have been reallocated to address family homelessness prior to shelter admission. These interventions range from simple support through to substantial financial and related interventions, all case-specific and progressive.

As one example, there is new “bridge funding” to support families who receive social assistance and are at imminent risk of homelessness for up to six months to allow them to remain housed while appropriate alternative housing is located, or they stabilize their current housing.

No more whack-a-mole responses

The system is moving from an uncoordinated set of whack-a-mole responses to an integrated response network within a solid policy framework, all based on solid research, and developed and delivered by the wide range of departments and agencies now working together to assist families in need.

This is a sea-change in how the City of Ottawa approaches the family homelessness issue. It’s consistent with best practices as discovered during the Housing Lab. It’s based upon and rooted in the research conducted during the Lab and consistent with the recommendations that emerged during the prototype phase of the Lab wherein agencies and the city experimented with new approaches.

There remains much to be done. The city still needs to build the information system that will allow various organizations to effectively co-ordinate their efforts and not burden families with resubmitting information already provided.

There also remains a significant role for volunteers in communities across Ottawa to assist families in need with their housing search–be it identification of vacant units or facilitating a rapid response to booking units that become available in this tight rental housing market.
So, we’re not quite all the way there yet, but we are clearly headed in the right direction and I’m confident that this new approach will pay major benefits both in terms of cost reductions and in terms of providing timely and appropriate support for families at risk.

The proof, as the saying goes, is in the pudding and we now have all of the right ingredients in place and a great recipe to follow. Let’s get cooking!

Allan Martel is a member of the Ottawa Family Homelessness Solutions Lab and president of the Cardinal Glen Community Association.