The Indwelling

• 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.