Saskatoon homelessness reduction initiative making headway
- Fraser Needham | July 07, 2015
A new report says a strategy to reduce homelessness in Saskatoon is showing positive results after one year.
The Housing First initiative was started in April 2014.
Program partners include the United Way, Saskatoon Housing Initiatives Partnership, Community Advisory Board, Saskatoon Police, Saskatoon Health Region and the provincial government.
The report says in the initiative’s first year 24 participants were able to find housing and the inappropriate use of various social services was reduced by 82 per cent.
For example, emergency room visits for these first 24 participants dropped from 399 to 84, ambulance rides from 286 to 66 and one-day brief detox from 647 to 43.
It is estimated that for every $1 invested in the program $2.23 is saved.
Program participants had been homeless for an average of three to five years with one participant going without shelter for a total of 17 years.
Shan Landry, who heads up the United Way’s homelessness reduction initiative, says according to 2011 figures there are about 372 homeless people in Saskatoon with roughly 72 of these individuals being chronically without shelter.
She says the Housing First initiative is making headway but homelessness remains a serious issue in the city.
“When we talk about chronically homeless people, that is people for the most part who have nowhere to stay every single night. A number of the participants in our program actually were people who slept rough. That is they slept on the riverbank, under the bridge, in construction sites where there might have been a bit of hoarding that gave them some protection, in stairwells…”
Landry also says years of living on the street tends to take a heavy toll on a person’s health.
“When you’re moving around and you have no stable place to wash, to take care of your personal hygiene and other things, that can make you more likely to want to turn to alcohol or some other substance to forget about your troubles,” she says. “Chronic health problems, some of our clients had many serious infections – HIV, TB – those kinds of things that tend to thrive in environments where you are not safe, you’re not getting enough sleep, you’re not bathing enough…”
United Way Saskatoon and Area Interim CEO Myra Potter says one of the benefits of the Housing First initiative is that it gives participants the choice of what type of housing arrangement they want to live in whether it be an apartment, boarding situation or care home.
She says although it certainly won’t be easy, eliminating homelessness in Saskatoon is a realistic and attainable goal.
“Our homeless population is not as huge as it is in bigger cities but we’re growing and I think we need to get out front on this and manage it while it’s manageable. But it’s absolutely doable. There’s no need for anyone in Saskatoon to be homeless.”
The next goal of the program is to create sustainable housing for another 100 homeless people over the next three years.
It is estimated that the $2.7 million invested in the initiative will save the public system about $5.7 million in reduced need for services.
The Housing First program in Saskatoon has also been officially named “Journey Home.”