Putting a firm figure on the number of homeless people both in the city and across Simcoe County will be a big help in moving toward a solution, according to Simcoe County Alliance to End Homelessness (SCATEH).
SCATEH co-chairs Jennifer van Gennip and Amy Pritzker updated city councillors Monday night about the area's homelessness problem with some figures showing how many people are homeless and how they ended up in that situation.
Simcoe County's first combined Homeless Point-in-Time Count and Registry Week, completed in April 2018, included 697 people who were counted as experiencing homelessness.
According to that snapshot, which was provincially mandated and also funded by the federal government, the local rate of homelessness is 14 per 10,000 people.
Barrie led the way with 305 homeless people, followed by Midland (138), Orillia (97), Collingwood and Alliston (24), Penetanguishene (17) and Wasaga Beach (nine). There were also 12 others spread over various municipalities in Simcoe County.
Van Gennip said the information will be used by agencies across Canada to measure or compare progress year-over-year to end homelessness.
"There was definitely some under-reporting as well, especially in the smaller centres where we are still working to reach volunteers and work with our youth services," van Gennip said.
Close to 500 people also participated in a survey where they shared their experiences.
Their location types included being provisionally accomodated (315, or 45 per cent), which includes transitional housing, couch-surfing, institutions and motels; emergency sheltered (292, or 42 per cent); unsheltered (82, or 12 per cent), which is people sleeping outside; and unknown (eight, or 1 per cent).
The top four reasons provided for their homelessness included addiction or substance abuse (21 per cent), inability to pay rent or mortgage (20 per cent), conflict with a partner or spouse (16 per cent), and unsafe housing conditions (15 per cent).
One-third of the people surveyed classified themselves as "newly homeless," and 28 per cent also stated they had nowhere to live upon leaving a hospital or a correctional facility.
"We are seeing a significant inflow into the homelessness system, even though we have homelessness prevention programs specifically designed to divert people from homelessless," van Gennip said, adding more supportive housing is needed and is a priority to end homelessness.
"That would seem to be the easiest group to address, maybe," said Coun. Barry Ward, because they should be able to make the connection to services available in the community.
Van Gennip said work is being done with the social services community to address that specific area.
The survey also noted that the largest percentage "by far," van Gennip said, remains to be adults.
"That signals to us that affordable housing development for this demographic needs to be prioritized," she added.
Coun. Keenan Aylwin asked what the city can do to help.
"There are multiple proposals in the works," said van Gennip, who specifically noted the 20,000 Homeless Campaign, a national strategy which aims to build 20,000 homes and house 20,000 people by 2020.
If that goal can be reached, it would switch into the Build For Zero campaign, "which would set a target of zero and work down," van Gennip said. That campaign will be officially launched next month.
"The goal is to have a running list, so that we know how many people are coming into the system and who is being housed," she added. "Our goal, obviously, is to end homelessness."
Van Gennip said it is not an unachieveable goal to end homelessness, noting discussions are also underway to use "bonusing dollars" to urge developers to create affordable housing capital projects.
"While that is not yet policy, and we have to go through the (public meeting) process before it becomes legislation, it's already quite public and quite strongly supported by council, at least at that first stage going forward," said Mayor Jeff Lehman.
The Housing First approach is also being used, where people are given housing without having to qualify for it, van Gennip said.
"The supports come with the housing to keep people successfully housed," she said, adding a regional Housing First program was launched by Simcoe County and SCATEH in November 2017. "The last report that I received shows 100 people received housing through that program, so these are our hardest to house people. There have been a lot of successes."
Now, 18 months later, people from the Housing First program are beginning to transition into the rental market and into accommodations without the additional supports, van Gennip said.
"The main barrier we have in the Housing First program is affordable stock," she said, noting the program includes a case manager who seeks out affordable housing for their clients. "We have a major stock issue."
Additionally, the survey found that one in four people who use emergency shelters also cited partner abuse, as well as harm to their children.
Aylwin asked if there were any figures specific to the LGBTQ community.
Van Gennip said those stats are also likely under-reported because there were questions asked in the survey that people may not have been comfortable answering.
"Lots of people chose not to answer certain questions," she said.
Almost one-quarter also indicated they had lived in foster care at some point in their lives, which van Gennip referred to as "unsettling," and almost one-third said their first experience with being homeless was during that time.
"When we look at this number, it's huge," she said. "We hope to be able to take some action on this, and try to find out more about what this number means and how we can improve upon this."
The survey also found 70 per cent of people had physical health problems, 35 per cent had mental-health issues, and 34 per cent suffered from addiction. It also found that 16 per cent of those surveyed were young people between the ages of 16 and 24 years old.
"Again, this number is likely under-reported," van Gennip said.
The next steps for SCATEH are to continue to educate politicians and decision makers, to increase housing options, as well as improve mental-health and addiction services.
"We are all involved in the solutions," said van Gennip.
