Ottawa needs to address the specific needs of at-risk youth in order to end homelessness in the city, according to a report released in late September by A Way Home Ottawa.
Operating under the banner of the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, A Way Home is a local coalition working to prevent youth homelessness.
The report, titled “The Opportunity Project: Telling a New Story About Youth Homelessness in Ottawa,” identifies five priorities for the city to address.
These priorities are: to increase access to affordable housing, to have consistent and flexible responses from different levels of government, to create a variety of resources to support youth transitioning into adulthood, to create a streamlined service referral process for youth, and to support youth to engage socially and recreationally in their community.
Kaite Burkholder Harris, author of the report, says using the “housing-first” approach to addressing homelessness is one of the most important points.
“You have to provide housing before trying to get somebody to deal with other challenges,” she said. “Before we can work on getting support for your mental health issue, or some substance use issues, or family dynamics, you need a safe place to stay.”
Harris said one of the highlights of the report is how youth with experience of homelessness and staff who work directly with them were extensively consulted. The report was designed in part by a team of seven “youth liaisons,” some of whom had experienced homelessness themselves.
Corrine Sauvé, a 23 year-old youth liaison and co-chair of A Way Home Ottawa, said her life experience encouraged her to apply for the position. She also emphasized the importance of the housing-first approach.
“When you’re focused on figuring out where you’re going to sleep and trying to make it a safe place — especially if you’re a young woman — you don’t have much time or much ability to attend school regularly, let alone have some kind of employment,” she said.
Mark Taylor, Ottawa’s deputy mayor and special liaison on homelessness and housing, said the city recognizes the need for more affordable housing. The City of Ottawa’s 10-year plan for housing and homelessness lists three priorities: ensuring everyone has a home, ensuring people get the support they need, and having collaboration between the city and other support services. The current plan was produced in 2013.
Taylor said the link between schools and other organizations that help prevent homelessness is not as strong as it should be.
“If we want to serve youth well we can really increase the amount of information that we share around a family or an individual youth that needs support,” he said.
This need for a better support network is emphasized in the report.
“School is often the front line in terms of not just youth being in trouble, but a family potentially being in crisis,” Harris said.
Harris said she also wants to see the city shift funding from emergency services, such as shelters and soup kitchens, to preventative services, such as outreach programs.
“It doesn’t make any sense that we’re functioning in emergency mode,” said Harris. “It’s not working.”
In fact, one of the goals of the city’s 10-year plan is to reinvest savings from emergency support into prevention services.
“The best way to manage youth homelessness is to prevent youth homelessness,” Taylor said.
The city, he added, needs to put the same emphasis on the issue of homelessness as they do with big projects such as the LRT or Lansdowne Park.
“I think one of the best signature projects we could do in this city is eliminate chronic homelessness and address affordable housing,” he said.
Harris said she thinks meaningful change is possible.
“There are success stories out there,” she said. “That’s something that we’re really interested in figuring out — what the Ottawa version of that success story can look like.”