Homeless youth require more assistance in order to escape poverty: That’s the message that was driven home during a recent presentation on youth homelessness at the city’s community and protective services committee.
A coalition of concerned groups presented a report to city councillors with new statistics and fresh ideas about how to address the growing issue of youth homelessness.
The presentation was conducted by A Way Home Ottawa, a non-profit organization working in partnership with provincial and federal governments to achieve an end to homelessness in Ottawa. It was created in 2015 after several agencies brought together by the Alliance to End Homelessness received nearly $150,000 in funding from United Way to develop a community strategy to address youth homelessness.
According to the presentation, more than 900 Ottawa youths stayed in homeless shelters in 2015, but that does not include many more who were unrecorded, couch-surfed or slept on the streets.
A Way Home Ottawa spent the past year listening to the needs and concerns of homeless youth and front line agencies in 18 different cities. The report was informed by focus groups and detailed interviews with more than 70 youth who have experienced homelessness, as well as 50 staff members from various agencies that work with homeless youth.
The report by A Way Home Ottawa was titled: “The Opportunity Project: Telling a New Story About Youth Homelessness.”
A Way Home Ottawa has developed five areas for action: more affordable housing options, implementation of housing as a human right, greater access to education and employment, streamlined referral services for homeless youth and the creation of services that support community-building.
The report has several specific recommendations to address the problem. One calls on governments to create rent supplements or housing allowances for youth and to increase the shelter portion of social assistance to better reflect average market rent. For example, Ontario Works provides $376 per month for shelter, but the average Ottawa rent for a bachelor apartment in 2015 was $801.
The report also suggests creating more partnerships with universities and colleges to support at-risk youth who want to pursue further education and expand life skills. Another recommendation calls for expanding life-skills classes aimed at youth living alone for the first time.
According to the report, the most notable findings were a significant need for new affordable housing options for youth, and that municipal and provincial services do not respond well to unique needs of youth, often exacerbating the crisis instead. It was also found that there is a general lack of education, employment and life skills development opportunities for at-risk youth in the city, and that isolation is a key factor among those who end up homeless.
“It’s not a question of giving out second-hand clothing and non-perishable food items, though we don’t want to dissuade people from helping out homeless,” said
Corinne Sauvé, co-chair of A Way Home Ottawa’s steering committee. “The most signification contribution would be removing the barriers that prevent street youth from leading the type of life that they aspire to,” she said.
The Housing First approach, which provides housing and supports for a person who is homeless regardless of their employment status, problems with substance abuse and other barriers, has become a guiding approach in responding to adult homelessness in Canada.
Now, A Way Home Ottawa would like to see that approach applied to homeless youth.
Kaite Harris, author of the new report, stressed that the key to ending homelessness in general is ending youth homelessness. “Without effective intervention,” she said, “we are creating a new generation of people, struggling with a cycle of poverty that becomes harder and harder to break.”