The Homelessness Partnering Strategy

Addressing homelessness is a challenge in all regions across Canada. The Homelessness Partnering Strategy (HPS) is a community-based program that relies on communities to determine their own needs and to develop appropriate projects.

The HPS works to prevent and reduce homelessness across Canada through:

• investments in transitional and supportive housing through a housing-first approach;
• support to community-based efforts to prevent and reduce homelessness;
• partnerships between the federal government, provinces, and territories; and
• collaboration with other federal departments and agencies.

The HPS has seven funding components:

• Designated Communities
• Outreach Communities
• Aboriginal Communities
• Federal Horizontal Pilot Projects
• Homelessness Knowledge Development
• Homelessness Individuals and Families Information System
• Surplus Federal Real Property for Homelessness Initiative

What we do

The HPS makes strategic investments in community priorities. It encourages cooperation between governments, agencies, and community-based organizations to find local solutions for people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

The HPS also partners with provinces and territories, communities, and the private and voluntary sectors to strengthen capacity and build sustainability. It carries out research to foster a better understanding of homelessness, and it collects and promotes best practices to help design the most effective responses.

The HPS recognizes that stable housing is a basic requirement for improving health, parenting, education, and employment. It emphasizes transitional and supportive housing to help individuals and families move to greater autonomy and self-sufficiency.

The Strategy supports 61 designated communities and some small, rural, northern, and Aboriginal communities to develop community-based measures that help homeless individuals and families. Official Language minority communities were also consulted to ensure that their needs are reflected in the development of our policies and programs, and the way we deliver services.

The challenges of Homelessness

There are many causes of homelessness, including insufficient affordable housing and housing supply, low income, the gap between income and affordability, mental health and/or substance abuse issues, family conflict, violence, job loss, breakdown, and inadequate discharge planning (ex-offenders, mentally ill persons, and persons leaving the care of the child welfare system).

An estimated 150,000 to 300,000 people are homeless in Canada, living in shelters or on the streets. On any given night, 40,000 people stay in homeless shelters. Single men are the largest segment of homeless people in most Canadian cities, but homelessness is rising among both single women and lone-parent families headed by women. Families with children living in poverty, street youth, Aboriginal persons, persons with mental illness, the working poor, and new immigrants are disproportionately reflected in the homeless population.

For more information about the Homelessness Partnering Strategy, to obtain a copy of a community plan, or to enquire about a Call for Proposal process in your own community, please contact the Homelessness Partnering Strategy Representative in your region.