This week, the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH) launched a new national effort to end chronic homelessness after its 20,000 Homes Campaign successfully housed 21,254 of Canada’s most vulnerable homeless people.
Chatham-Kent Employment and Social Services housed 78 chronically homeless people during this campaign.
Built for Zero Canada (BFZ-C) is an ambitious national change effort helping a core group of leading communities end chronic homelessness – a first step on the path to eliminating all homelessness in Canada.
Chatham-Kent joined the 20,000 Homes Campaign in March of 2018 and will continue with BFZ-C.
“Involvement in the campaign has provided the Municipality’s Employment and Social Services Division (who deliver homelessness services in Chatham-Kent) with additional resources in the fight against homelessness,” stated Polly Smith, Director of Employment and Social Services, in a media release.
“It’s a serious problem in Canada, and it takes a strong collective effort to create change and data is part of that. We compare with other communities while working together to end homelessness.”
“Homelessness is a crisis that has lost its sense of urgency,” stated Tim Richter, Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness President & CEO, in a media release.
“The 20,000 Homes Campaign created a sense of urgency in communities across the country and helped energize efforts to end homelessness. Most importantly our community partners ended homelessness for 21,254 people and we learned together what it really takes to end chronic homelessness. We’ll apply those lessons through Built for Zero Canada to help communities across Canada end chronic homelessness.”
BFZ-C uses a structured, supportive and data-driven approach that focuses on optimizing local homeless systems, accelerating the adoption of proven practices and driving continuous improvement.
“Communities are using real-time, person-specific data on everyone experiencing homelessness to build more coordinated homeless systems and reduce chronic homelessness,” stated Marie Morrison, 20,000 Homes Campaign Director, and now Director of Built for Zero Canada, in a press release.
“This relentless data-driven performance improvement approach is getting results and showing that together, we can end chronic homelessness.”
Core elements of the 20,000 Homes Campaign and Built for Zero Canada are embedded in Canada’s new homelessness strategy, Reaching Home, which launches in April.
The 20,000 Homes Campaign was supported by a grant from Employment and Social Development Canada.
“Community leadership, evidence-based decision making and building coordinated systems are at the heart of Reaching Home,” stated the Hon. Jean Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, in a media release.
“I want to thank CAEH and most importantly the communities of the 20,000 Homes Campaign for your efforts and congratulate you on your success.”
“We have learned a great deal from our partnership with you and look forward to working closely with you through the implementation of Reaching Home. Together I believe we can meet, and even go beyond the ambitious goals of Reaching Home to cut chronic homelessness in half across the country. Together we will continue to work towards our common vision of eliminating homelessness in Canada.”
For more information, visit bfzcanada.ca.
More details:
– An estimated 235,000 people experience homelessness every year in Canada. People experiencing chronic homelessness are deeply impoverished and typically suffer from a range of complex medical, mental health, addiction and trauma-related challenges.
– There are 38 communities participating in Built for Zero Canada (BFZ-C). Eleven of these communities have achieved quality By-Name Lists and all are working to strengthen or put in place Coordinated Access Systems. Two communities have achieved verifiable reductions in chronic homelessness.
– A By-Name List is a real-time list of all people experiencing homelessness in a community. A Coordinated Access System is a way for communities to design, streamline, and bring consistency to the process by which people experiencing homelessness access housing and services. Functional zero means a community has three or fewer people experiencing chronic homelessness over three months. The community works to sustain functional zero, drive for the complete elimination of chronic homelessness and move on to ending homelessness for other groups, ultimately ending homelessness for all.
– Under Reaching Home, communities will be expected to develop By-Name Lists of all people experiencing chronic homelessness, develop Coordinated Access Systems and implement the Homelessness Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS). BFZ-C is supporting the work of its communities to develop these tools and implement HIFIS.
– BFZ-C is a part of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. Founded in 2012, the CAEH leads a national movement of individuals, organizations and communities working together to end homelessness.
– To track Chatham-Kent’s progress in the fight against homelessness, click on this link.
