Housing With Supports offers people who have experienced homelessness support to achieve housing and personal stability by providing programming and supports to help people maintain their housing. This type of program can end the experience of chronic homelessness for people who face barriers due to mental/physical health problems or addiction. It can be permanent housing for some individuals or a stepping-stone to other housing options that better meet their needs.
Housing With Supports programs are provided in Grande Prairie based on a philosophy called Housing First, where people are provided with a stable place to live without having to first achieve readiness such as achieving sobriety. The philosophy is that people will be more successful in addressing the causes of their homeless experience from a stable housing environment.
Supports Available
- Onsite support staff 24/hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Individual Case Plans to meet physical, social, emotional and spiritual needs.
- Assistance navigating local services including health, treatment programs, counselling, income and employment.
Benefits of Housing With Supports
- Enhances other programs that address homelessness
- Reduces number of people experiencing chronic homelessness
- Improves physical and mental wellbeing for residents
- Increases social inclusion and independence for residents
- Reduces costs to public systems related to chronic homelessness, including shelter use, hospital visits, involvement with police, corrections, and courts
Types of Housing With Supports
There are two types of Housing With Supports programs offered in Grande Prairie that address homelessness using a Housing First approach:
Scattered-Site Housing With Supports
This type of program helps people who are experiencing homelessness to find a regular rental unit in the community. It supports single adults, couples, independent youth and families. People in this type of program can live on their own without 24-hour services. People may be in these programs for as long as needed, but can often graduate after 6, 12 or 18 months. Work done by qualified social workers and housing support workers in this program including:
- Searching for and finding a rental unit in the community
- Weekly in-home visits
- Individual planning and goal-setting to meet physical, social, emotional and spiritual needs.
- Assistance navigating local services including health, treatment programs, counselling, income and employment.
- Developing positive relationships with landlords
- Rental assistance subsidies
Place-based Housing With Supports
This type of program helps people who are experiencing homelessness to achieve stability in a building with 24-hour support staff available where everyone in the building is participating in the program. People in place-based Housing With Supports have often experienced chronic (long-term) homelessness and face additional barriers to housing related to addiction, mental health, cognitive or physical health issues that mean more intensive supports are needed. An in-depth assessment is completed to ensure that a person is a good fit for a place-based program. Some people may live in these programs for a very long time, while others will move on to other forms of housing relatively quickly. An example of place-based Housing With Supports in Grande Prairie is the Cedar Point.
Services offered in this type of program are similar to scattered-site programs, but provided much more frequently. These programs also monitor access to the building 24-hours a day, provide access to onsite medical services, and provide regular crisis prevention support.
Need for Housing With Supports
The Homelessness Strategy (2021-2023) identified Housing With Supports as critical infrastructure to achieve success.
The right housing for the right individual is key to successfully ending homelessness in Grande Prairie. Housing With Supports is one option on a continuum of supports available in our community.
Hundreds of people experience homelessness in Grande Prairie each year. Many of these people will solve homelessness on their own, while many others will experience long-term and repeated episodes of homelessness. Without effective Housing With Supports programs to address homelessness, Grande Prairie would see a continued rise in the rate of homelessness, overflowing emergency programs, and more.
Housing With Supports programs help people who are not able to solve homelessness on their own due to the complexity of factors affecting their lives. Studies have shown Housing With Supports programs using a Housing First approach to be more effective at addressing homelessness than other options available. Grande Prairie is one of hundreds of municipalities in Canada and across the world employing a Housing First, Housing With Supports approach to addressing chronic homelessness.