It’s been about seven months since the city realigned funding for non-profit organizations delivering homelessness services in Ottawa, resulting in major cuts to drop-in centres providing community services to the struggling and disadvantaged.
Established service providers such as Centre 507 – an adult drop-in centre housed in the Centretown United Church, the Well – a women’s day program at Somerset and Elgin, and the Odawa Native Friendship Centre’s Shawenjeagamik Aboriginal drop-in centre at 510 Rideau St. lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in government funding.
This shake-up resulted from a new federal requirement: that 65 per cent of funding given to municipalities to address homelessness be invested in “housing first” initiatives. The adjustment essentially sought to streamline and centralize services where possible, avoid duplication and to pour more funding into to avenues projected to be most socially and financially effective, all while somehow maintaining investments in other homeless assistance approaches.
Housing first is a relatively new research-backed approach that aims to get the chronically homeless off the streets and out of shelters as quickly as possible, without prerequisites like sobriety, and into permanent housing with ongoing support services provided thereafter based on individual needs.
“The housing first approach to ending homelessness is based on the success of local housing projects which reduced street homelessness by 80 to 90 per cent over a five-year period,” says city general manager Aaron Burry.
It’s also based on the outcome of a four-year, five-city, $100-million study funded by the federal government on the housing first approach’s effectiveness in tackling issues of mental health and homelessness. The study’s conclusions suggest that housing first works. It’s said to be more efficient and cost-effective than traditional approaches to homelessness.
“Housing first is a good approach, but housing first is not the approach that will end each person’s homelessness, or that will provide each person with the kind of community support that’s needed,” says Mike Bulthuis, executive director of Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa.
Increased government focus on initiatives that take a housing first approach has taken a toll on other services, particularly drop-in centres.
Bulthuis says it’s important to protect drop-in centres and day programs because of the role they play in providing community, guidance and resources to the impoverished and mentally ill.
“I think that the role that a drop-in like 507 or the Well and others play continues to be really important, both for people who are homeless but also for people who are housed. Those are important centres for community, connections and that kind of thing. So, I wouldn’t say that one can be sacrificed for the other,” says Bulthuis.
He says policy makers need to do a better job at recognizing the value of day-programs and drop-ins. “There are some incredible stories there … We need to find a way to measure that value, and then use that information to advocate for increased funding.”
With housing first, necessary supports are to be provided to ensure needs are met and housing is kept. “Those supports, I think, are equally important as the housing itself,” says Bulthuis.
He says that’s where drop-ins can come in and play a role in the process. Drop-ins offer productive classes and life-skills workshops in a community setting. “I think they’re an important part of that puzzle … we can’t forget about some of those aspects of community and relationships and needing service.”
Centre 507 executive director Richard Leblanc says that “the drop-in centre is still going strong” despite a funding cut of over 50 per cent in the spring, resulting in staff cuts and reduction in hours of operation. “We’re doing a lot of amazing work every day, and just because the funding shifted, it didn’t ruin us.”
Despite the adversity, Leblanc says he and the team at Centre 507 have moved forward and are doing everything they can with the resources they have. “We’re just focused on serving the people who come into Centre 507 every day. We’re still getting 40,000 visits a year, so were just focused on providing support to those people.”