ONTARIO’S HISTORY WITH HOUSING FIRST
By Nick Falvo
Carleton University
Addictions & Mental Health Ontario
3rd Annual Addictions and Mental Health Conference
May 25, 2015
Toronto, Canada
1. Housing First has no clear definition
• At one time, it referred to the provision of permanent housing to an individual without requiring ‘housing readiness.’
• Over the past decade, many individuals and groups have redefined/coopted the term.
2. It’s not exactly “new”
• Since homelessness became a pressing public policy issue in the 1980s, many advocates have stressed the need to provide permanent housing without requiring the incoming tenant to prove their ‘housing readiness.’
• As early as the 1980s throughout Ontario, many community agencies started creating housing for homeless singles without requiring housing readiness.
• (Admittedly, some supportive housing providers have required housing readiness; but many did not.)
3. Its messaging has broad appeal
• Admittedly, Housing First does not appeal to everyone.
• But it does resonate to a great many people across the political spectrum on ‘the left’ and ‘the right.’
• It can also be supported in principle by a funder even if that funder does not wish to provide funding for all (or even most) people in need of Housing First.
4. Before Housing First, there was Supportive Housing
• Major inroads were made in Ontario with respect to supportive housing, beginning in the 1980s.
• I know this happened in both Toronto and Ottawa, as well as other communities across the province.
• This was seen as a belated response to deinstitutionalization.
5. Supportive Housing
• Supportive housing is a term that refers to permanent housing for marginalized persons that is both funded by government and offers staff support to the tenant.
• Individuals living in supportive housing in Ontario today include individuals who have experienced: homelessness, acquired brain injuries, mental health problems, HIV/AIDS, and addictions.