Time Requirements:
1-2 weekly visits initially; number of visits diminish over 18 month housing contract

Time & Day:
Flexible; may be during the day or evening; some weekends

Location:
Tri-Cities (Port Coquitlam, Coquitlam, Port Moody)

Contact:
Joan Isaacs, Executive Director; C.604.644.4717; info@homesforgood.ca

Website:
www.homesforgood.ca

Description:
Homes for Good Ending Homelessness Society (HFG) is a society formed in 2010 to provide a sound approach to resolving issues regarding homelessness in the Tri-Cities area.  Our model is a “Two Pillar” methodology based on various successful housing first models both the US and Canada.  The primary objective of a housing first model is to secure clients in a home (Phase I) and subsequently introduce one or more resources that may assist clients to successfully integrate back into the community (Phase II).

Homes for Good is currently looking for a volunteer care team (1-2 individuals per team) who can provide companion support through mentorship and positive role modeling.  This is a position that requires some flexibility during the day or evening and may require some weekend visits.  Initially, visits are schedule once or twice weekly and diminish over time (18 months) as our client gains confidence and independence.

If you are an individual who wishes to make a difference in your community and have a positive impact in the life of an individual, we’d like you to be part of our care team.

Contact Joan Isaacs for further details.
C.604.644.4717; info@homesforgood.ca

After two years of haggling with the provincial government and cutting through kilometres of red tape, Port Coquitlam’s Homes for Good Society has successfully housed its first client.

Since the beginning of June, the organization has housed a woman in a basement suite in PoCo using funding from the Soroptimist Society.

The initiative follows the housing-first strategy, which places homeless people in market-based housing and tops up their welfare cheque with private contributions. The model has been successful in other places, including Toronto and New York.

“It was a long time coming and it was a lot of work,” said PoCo Mayor Greg Moore, who launched the initiative in 2009. “I think the whole group was overjoyed.”

Discussions are currently underway to house a second client and he added that as the society connects more people with places to live, the process will get easier.

While Homes for Good didn’t achieve its goal of housing 40 people by the end of 2010, Moore said with the latest success, he believes the initiative is on track. The organization now expects to house 20 people by the end of 2011, he said, noting it wants to double that number by the end of 2012.

“There will be some bumps along the way but we will learn from those and not make the same mistakes twice,” he said. “Housing the second, third and fourth person will be a lot more efficient.”

The society is now applying to the Canada Revenue Agency to receive charity status. Once that process has concluded, Moore said the organization can focus on its fundraising efforts and provide tax receipts to people who contribute.

Housing its first client has been a long time coming for the society. One of the major hold-ups to the program, Moore said, was the fact regulations stipulate a person who receives monthly government assistance cannot receive an outside taxable benefit.  The extra income the society provides its clients for market-based rents would make recipients ineligible for welfare and the programs that come with it.

After consultations with Housing Minister Rich Coleman, some of the barriers were removed and the Homes for Good Society was able to move forward.

PORT COQUITLAM (NEWS1130) – It was caught up in red tape for months, but a plan to house the homeless in Port Coquitlam has now cleared all of its bureaucratic hurdles. Now that the loopholes have been closed, other communities are looking to get involved.

Mayor Greg Moore borrowed the idea for “Homes for Good” from across the border. The organization raises money and uses that cash to supplement rents for homeless people.

But the issue was that the province treated those supplements as income, so anyone who signed up for the program wouldn’t be eligible for welfare.

Moore says they’ve resolved the issue with the province and now his plan is getting some interest from other cities. “If someone else wants to do it, we can work with them and pretty much give them a manual of how to do it, and then help them work through it. We’re working to ensure that others can copy our success.”

He says Surrey has already contacted him and he’s had a few other phone calls as well.

The Homes For Good Society is one step closer to its goal of ending homelessness in the Tri-Cities.

Last Tuesday, the non-profit organization reached a long-awaited agreement with the Ministry of Housing that will allow plans to proceed.

“That’s what we were waiting for. We really couldn’t move forward until we had an agreement with the ministry on how we were going to implement our housing-first initiative,” said Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore.

“Things are going to start happening now in the sense that we’re going to start board development and fundraising. We’re going to start working to solidify our partnerships and then start looking for clients to house.”

The Homes for Good Society launched last October, stemming from Port Coquitlam’s action team on homelessness. It focuses on a housing-first model of providing homes and wrap-around services to help chronically homeless people stay off the streets.

The group had originally hoped to house 10 homeless people in the Tri-Cities by the end of March 2010, and another 30 by the end of this year.

The five-year plan seeks to find homes for all homeless people in the Tri-Cities and then expand services to other communities.

However, the process stalled due to red-tape.

“The province has regulations that do not allow subsidizing rent, and that’s in essence what we would like to do with the housing-first strategy. So we had to work with them to develop a model that we weren’t actually subsidizing the individual for housing,” Moore said.

“That’s why it took some challenges, because they didn’t want to change their regulations, which I can understand. So we had to work through how the operational model was going to be different.”

Although there is no timeline yet for when the first homeless person will be housed through the organization, Moore is optimistic plans will proceed quickly.

“We’re working as hard and as fast as we can to house someone as soon as possible,” he said.

“We really think once we have the first person housed and have a relationship with the landlord and figure out some of those operational issues, then housing the next person and the next 10 people will happen much quicker because we’ve figured out some of the things we need to do.

“We’re very excited as a group.”

Metro Vancouver’s mayors renewed their call for a national affordable housing strategy as the fourth-annual Homelessness Action Week kicked off yesterday.

“We’re letting people fall through the cracks … and no other country at our level is doing that,” said Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.

Nearby, powerwashers prepared to emblazon stophomelessness.ca into the sidewalk outside the Broadway-Commercial SkyTrain station — a reminder that each person can help end homelessness.

Canada is the only G8 country without a national housing strategy, which would align provincial, federal and municipal efforts to eradicate homelessness.

Figures from March 2008 indicate that there are 2,600 homeless in Metro Vancouver, but the real number of homeless is thought to be higher due to last year’s economic downturn.

Many others — specifically young adults and single mothers — live on the brink of homelessness, said Alice Sundberg, co-chair of the Greater Vancouver Regional Steering Committee on Homelessness.

“They may be one paycheque away from losing their home and having no place to stay,” she said.

Ending homelessness goes beyond getting people off the street and into shelters, added Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore.

“(It’s also about) closing the door to homelessness so people don’t become homeless. We can be a better society if people aren’t on the streets … we should keep them in the homes they are in, and that’s what the national strategy needs to address.”

Three Metro Vancouver mayors urged residents to pressure politicians to do something about the homeless in their communities Monday.

Alice Sundberg, co-chair of the Greater Vancouver Regional Steering Committee on Homelessness said the problem crosses all Metro Vancouver boundaries.

It’s estimated there are more than 2,600 homeless people in Metro Vancouver.

“In Metro, one of the major reasons we have people with no where to live is because we have a severe shortage of affordable housing,” said Sundberg.

The week of action against homelessness began Sunday and runs until Saturday. “[This week] is about mobilizing people’s energy to solve homelessness and about telling people who are homeless that we care,” said Sundberg.

She urged people to visit www.stophomelessness.ca to see how they can contribute. Canada’s federal housing program was cancelled in 1993.

Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart said local governments can’t ignore homelessness. He said there are 200 homeless in the Tri-Cities area.

“It’s not just homelessness though, it’s the thousands of people in our community that are at risk of homelessness because the housing market has not worked very well,” said Stewart.

There is simply not enough affordable places to rent, he said.

“It’s single parents, it’s seniors, it’s young people. A broad range of our community is a pay cheque or two away from losing their homes. We need to tackle that,” said Stewart.

Stewart was joined at the press conference by Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore.

Along with Burnaby and Maple Ridge, the Tri-Cities had the largest percentage growth in homelessness between 2005 and 2008.

Robertson noted that Canada is the only G8 country that doesn’t have a national housing strategy.

“We’re letting people fall through the cracks without homes to go to and no other country at our level is doing that,” he said.

The Mayor’s Action Team on Homelessness dissolved last week, making way for a new society whose goal is to end chronic homelessness in the Tri-Cities in five years.

The Homes for Good Society will pick up where MATH leaves off, bringing to life the two-pillar strategy to end homelessness that was released Friday. The strategy was developed by 22 individuals from all walks of life, including homeless residents, over a seven-month period.

“We’ve looked at jurisdictions and cities around North America to learn about models that work,” said Mayor Greg Moore, who will chair the new society. “They’ve been successful and we think we can achieve similar successes. That’s why we’ve taken the bold step of giving ourselves the goal of ending chronic homelessness in the Tri-Cities in the next five years.”

The strategy’s innovative approach is based on two pillars that aim to permanently end the crisis of homelessness, rather than manage it with temporary fixes:
• Finding homes for good –the right homes for the right people will be found from existing inventory wherever possible.
• Coordinating necessary supports to keep people housed for good – comprehensive case management, though a Case Champion, will ensure clients receive the services and support they need to stay in their home.

“The crisis of homelessness has been building for years,” Mayor Moore said. “This is the right thing to do. Our community needs to look after all of its citizens – not just the ones who have a home and not just the ones who have a job.”

One of MATH’s guiding principles in developing the strategy was to learn from others’ successes and to maximize existing resources. The society will work closely with other agencies, government and service groups, and will employ the Housing First model that has seen success around North America, including Toronto and Portland.
In addition to seeking government funding, the society is planning creative fundraising approaches such as the “dollar a day” concept popularized by World Vision, a “giving circle” model that provides a return for investments of cash and goods, and partnerships with businesses and agencies.

“We want to make it convenient for someone to give. We’re going to use technology and the internet to bring it home to people,” Mayor Moore said. “Generally, I’ve had a lot of feedback that people want to help out. And they want to help end the problem, not manage the problem.”

A report on homelessness in the Tri-Cities by the Hope for Freedom Society (conducted Oct. 2006-Mar. 2007) indicates that Port Coquitlam is a hot spot for homelessness in the region:

• 168 individuals were identified as homeless in the Tri-Cities. Of those, 62 per cent (102 individuals) were living in Port Coquitlam, 30 per cent in Coquitlam and eight per cent in Port Moody.
• 88 per cent of the homeless people in the survey had a drug, alcohol or other substance dependency, about 37 per cent had a mental illness, about 36 per cent had dual diagnoses, and about 13 per cent came from abusive family situations.
• The homeless live throughout our community, seeking shelter in a variety of locations, including homeless camps (24.1 per cent), drug houses (11.2 per cent), abandoned buildings (7.8 per cent) and vehicles (six per cent).
• 71.6 per cent were categorized as “roaming,” which includes seeking shelter at the locations above, plus “couch-surfing” (temporary accommodation with friends or family).
• Only 29 per cent indicated they were originally from the Tri-Cities. Of those, 40 per cent (19 individuals) said they were originally from Port Coquitlam.
• Port Coquitlam is considered an ideal location because of access to the river and downtown, and the availability of services.
• Ages of homeless people in the Tri-Cities range from 18 to 60, with an average of 40. Sixty-eight per cent are male.

The Homes for Good Society will hold its first meeting in October. The full version of the Homes for Good strategy is available at: www.homesforgood.ca