Joint effort ends chronic homelessness for families in Waterloo Region

Waterloo Region – A joint effort by emergency shelters, housing providers, and support services has ended chronic homelessness for families in Waterloo Region.

Chronic homelessness describes people who experience homelessness for more than six months. In January, the last family experiencing chronic homelessness in Waterloo Region moved into supportive housing operated by House of Friendship.

Families were also supported by YW Kitchener and by Lutherwood, an agency that runs the Region-funded Families in Transition (FIT) program. The program works with families to find homes before tackling other life challenges they may face, and offers support to help them stay housed if needed.

Efforts are now focused on sustaining an end to chronic homelessness for families for more than three months (known as functional zero).

Last year Lutherwood and its partners diverted 81 percent of families away from emergency shelters using creative solutions.

Lutherwood’s team-based approach to helping families is similar to its approach to helping others who are chronically homeless find and retain housing.

The community is also working together on longer term strategies to address housing and homelessness.

Quotes:

“It is amazing to be part of this story,” said Jessica Bondy, Director of Housing Services at House of Friendship. “This is a testament to what our community can accomplish by working together, being flexible, and looking for innovative solutions to such a complex problem. We look forward to more opportunities to help families and individuals in need find a place to call home.”

“These results are exciting and speak to the value of working collaboratively with our community partners to ensure our collective systems and services work together to achieve the same goal,” said Lisa Gill, Assistant Director of Housing Services at Lutherwood. “Providing early, system-wide responses are crucial to success. By building on this success, growing partnerships with all sectors and engaging our community, the goal of ending all chronic homelessness in Waterloo Region becomes much more achievable.”

“Pooling our resources together equips partners to better serve individuals and families who have increasingly complex needs,” said Abla Tsolu, Director of Homelessness and Housing at YW Kitchener-Waterloo. “But we need to do more. There are pressures on resources and wait lists in so many areas, including health care and mental health; we need sustainable investment from all sectors including the private sector to end homelessness. It takes a village!”

“Given the incredible complexity underlying homelessness we know that it takes an entire community and cross sector effort to address it,” said Ryan Pettipiere, Director of Housing Services at the Region of Waterloo. “The success demonstrated in eliminating chronic family homelessness in Waterloo Region is evidence that the community system in place is working and is inspiring in the results. We know much work remains to be done but believe that by building on the success achieved to date and the will of our partners we have the ability to rise to the challenge.”

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For an interview, please contact:

Chris Sellers
Director, Communications, Marketing & Strategy, Lutherwood
519-707-1958 ext. 1237
csellers@lutherwood.ca    

Gail Martin
Marketing & Communications Specialist, House of Friendship
519-742-8327 x 132
GailM@houseoffriendship.org

Abla Tsolu
Director of Homelessness & Housing Services, YW Kitchener-Waterloo
519-744-6507
abla.tsolu@ywkw.ca

Sherry Morley
Communications Coordinator, Community Services, Region of Waterloo
519-883-2377
smorley@regionofwaterloo.ca