Ending Canadian Homelessness
In Canada, solutions put forth to end homelessness are similar to those championed by advocates in the U.S. Canada has strategies for addressing homelessness that are adopted at the national, territorial, and local levels to address the needs of different sub-populations.
In June 2018, the Government of Canada released Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy, which contains a comprehensive plan for addressing the homelessness crisis in the nation.
Reaching Home is designed to:
- support the goals of the National Housing Strategy
- support the most vulnerable Canadians in maintaining safe, stable and affordable housing
- and reduce chronic homelessness nationally by 50 percent by 2027-2028
The plan emphasizes Housing First approaches, homelessness prevention, and programming designed to meet the needs of different vulnerable populations. Those populations include youth, women and children fleeing violence, marginalized racial and ethnic groups and veterans.
Working to End Canadian Homelessness
Outside of the government, a few primary non-profit organizations exist to fight homelessness in Canada. Among them are the Canadian Alliance for End Homelessness (CAEH) and the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH). These organizations drive advocacy, education, and collaborative networks of partners working at ending Canadian homelessness.
For single adults experiencing chronic homelessness, housing campaigns exist in Canada similar to those in the U.S. CAEH spearheaded the national campaign “20,000 Homes Campaign”, which housed 21,254 people. In March 2019, Built for Zero Canada was launched. This campaign seeks to end all homelessness in Canada.
To respond to youth homelessness, government agencies and advocates in Canada promote prevention and early intervention strategies that help young people avert or exit homelessness as quickly as possible. Plans, like this, outline the best approaches to end youth homelessness in Canada.
Canada also has campaigns and programs to address Indigenous homelessness.
Want to learn more? The COH has educational resources on homelessness available here: http://homelesshub.ca/education/students; and in-depth information on solutions to homelessness here: http://homelesshub.ca/solutions.
