Housing First

• "Homelessness is a social problem that's compounded by exorbitant housing prices," said the book's authors, Dr. Wayne Winegarden and Steven Greenhut.
• "Regions with lower-cost housing have much lower levels of homelessness because a lack of low-cost housing leaves those people on the economic margins with nowhere to go."
• The law's maze of costly reports, multiple approvals, and potential for out-of-control lawsuits has become a major obstacle to homebuilding.
• PRI's Free Cities Center cultivates innovative ideas to improve urban life based around freedom and property rights -- not government.

• Homelessness is only one part of Canada’s housing crisis but is a priority within the federal government’s National Housing Strategy, which is currently under review.
• Read more:
  Canada’s National Housing Strategy: Is it really addressing homelessness and affordability?
• While efforts are being made nationally and locally to provide more housing, solutions are required to help those most deeply excluded from the housing market: people experiencing homelessness.

Understanding housing needs

• While there is some new affordable housing being developed through the National Housing Strategy, this housing tends to only support those with less complex needs, such as those who can afford units at 70 or 80 per cent of average market rents or are able to live independently.
• This means current affordable housing systems are failing those with the highest needs and our current system design is actually deepening inequality.
• However, Housing First programs, targeted to those with higher needs and more deeply marginalized, are vastly over-subscribed and bogged down by waitlists.

Permanent supportive housing

• The first phase of our ongoing research on permanent supportive housing was conducted over three years with Indwell, an organization that provides both affordable and supportive housing throughout southwestern Ontario.
• We wanted to understand how this organization was creating permanent supportive housing and the impacts this might have on tenants.
• Through permanent supportive housing they had finally achieved housing stability.
• To address chronic homelessness, the federal government needs to include funding for longer-term supportive housing in its National Housing Strategy.

• Providing a pathway to self-sufficiency for families experiencing homelessness is key to building stronger communities, said Peter T. Pruitt, Jr., president and CEO of Chapman Partnership.
• This one-time grant will help Chapman Partnership in its tireless work to support families as they reel from skyrocketing rent costs, limited services and insufficient incomes.
• Chapman Partnership plans to use the grant funds to implement a system-wide approach that goes beyond shelter.
• Chapman Partnership was selected as a Day 1 Families Fund grant recipient by a group of national advisors who are leading advocates and experts on homelessness and service provision.

• "California has spent billions on Project Homekey, yet PRI's report shows that California's homeless problem is worse than ever," said Dr. Wayne Winegarden and Kerry Jackson, the study's co-authors.
• Backed with federal and state funding, Project Homekey aims to utilize unused motels and hotels to move people from the streets to housing.
• Total Homeless Population Growing Despite Billions Spent: Preliminary Point-in-Time homeless counts released by eight California counties shows total homeless populations growing in six out of eight counties.
• Riverside and Santa Clara counties saw overall homeless populations increase, further evidence that Homekey is not reducing homelessness in these counties.