About the Project
Homelessness continues to rise in communities across Ontario and Canada. While research to date has explored various affordable and supportive housing models, approaches geared towards particular populations, such as Indigenous people, women, and youth, have included large-scale evaluations of Housing First, a comprehensive policy framework that has been lacking both provincially and nationally. In particular, all orders of government, driven by 4-year election cycles, tend to pursue promising models simply by shifting resources from one area within the sector to another. What Ontario and Canada lacks is a long-term comprehensive policy vision of how to truly prevent and end homelessness based on best international research evidence and local knowledge. The Ontario Alliance to End Homelessness (OAEH), as an affiliated network of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH), has taken up the challenge of creating such a policy framework.
Our partnership has addressed the following question: What policy framework in housing and homelessness will truly end homelessness and sustain this ending of homelessness, and how should this be translated into local programs? The goal of the partnership was to create such a framework through a multi-phase process that included people with lived/living experiences of homelessness, academics, service providers, advocates, and policy-makers on the research team, reaching out to these same 5 stakeholder groups as research participants. We followed 3 distinct, qualitative methods: 1) A series of literature reviews; 2) Key informant interviews/surveys; and 3) A broad series of focus groups. With an integrated knowledge mobilization approach, we built and refined the policy framework with inclusion of all relevant stakeholder groups.
Preliminary Findings
Our work looked at transformational policy moves. We presented these at the CHRA conference then wrote about them for their blog. Click here to read the CHRA 2024 Conference blog post: Five Transformational Moves to End Homelessness in Canada
Through our data collection, we developed a map of the current system in Canada:
We also mapped out what an ideal system would look like:
But how do we get there when there are multiple overlapping public and private sectors influencing this process? While the images are complicated, we have proposed 4 fundamental policy moves to get from the current system to the ideal, as follows:
Shift 1 – If all people are going to have access to housing, we need to publicly provide a sufficient income to afford rent, recognizing that some people will be temporarily out of work, and some people were permanently not be able to work:
However, if income supports increase but nothing else changes in the system, then we simply drive the demand side of the housing equation. Therefore, we will need to manage the housing system to a degree to ensure affordability, such as rent controls (done well, ie. that are comprehensive, predictable, reasonable, and inflationary), intensification, and tools to disincentivize landholding of unused properties.
Managing the market, to an extent, will create some downwards pressure on new development. Also, the private market itself fluctuates significantly with things like interest rates and other external factors. Therefore, to ensure sufficient and consistent housing supply, we need to return to having a stream of new public housing development. This creates both stock and affordability:
Finally, if we have sufficient income, sufficient housing, and reasonable rents, we also need to recognize some people will require support to maintain their housing, be re-housed, or be stabilized in housing post-homelessness. Therefore, we need sufficient wrap-around supports to make housing successful:
We look forward to sharing further findings as they are developed.
Funding
The project entitled “Designing a Framework to Prevent and End Homelessness in Ontario” received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research (SSHRC) Partnership Development Grant.
Research Team
This project involves a large team of 32 researchers, service providers, people with lived/living experiences of homelessness, advocates, and policy makers/implementers. To facilitate this work, a leadership table is overseeing project operations under the leadership of Dr. Abe Oudshoorn.
Abe Oudshoorn – Carrie Anne Marshall – Alexandra Nelson – Michelle Bilek – Jonathon Alschech – Kaite Burkholder Harris – Jeremy Wildeman – Kateryna Metersky – Carol Kauppi – Erin Dej – Kaitlin Schwan – Kristy Buccieri – Steve Gaetz – Stephanie Baker Collins – Tyler Frederick – Sean A. Kidd – Rebecca Schiff – Ravi Gokani – Jim Dunn – Jackie Kennelly – Terrilee Kelford – Sarah Collins – Tim Smuck – Keith Lau – Jayne Malenfant – Carrie Bartsch – M.Nickolas Watchorn – Indro Bhattacharyya – Jordan Pelkmans – Doug Ball – Leigh Bursey – Catherine McKenney – Parvinder Hira-Friesen – Steve Rolfe