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Review of Calgary's 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness, January 2011 Update. Calgary Homeless Foundation, January 2011.
In January of 2008, the Calgary Committee to End Homelessness began the implementation of Canada’s first 10-year Housing First-based model to eliminate homelessness. Named ‘Calgary’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness’, the plan’s Phase 1 was put into action by the Calgary Homeless Foundation (CHF) in partnership with private and public investors. With a focused and multi-sector funding and service delivery strategy, the Plan has benefitted over 2,300 Calgarians over the past three years (the original plan can be found here). The Plan has now been adjusted with the intention of providing the most relevant and effective services possible for the next seven years.
Report Summary
The Plan has been updated and brought into Phase 2 by using the past three years of experience of over 130 Plan stakeholders. Some of the Plan’s priorities have been modified or discontinued, but the CHF’s commitment remains the same: reduce emergency shelter use to a maximum of 7 days per episode before being transitioned into permanent housing (effectively eliminating homelessness). The Update identifies the actions required for the next four years to attain this goal. Table 1 lists all adjustments and amendments to these actions for Phase 2.
The required actions for Phase 2 aim to coordinate efforts and fill in major gaps from Phase 1. These actions are grouped into four overlapping strategies:
Strategy 1 – Prevention and Rehousing
Strategy 2 – Housing
Strategy 3 – Data and Research
Strategy 4 – Non-Profit Sector
The backbone for implementation of these strategies in Phase 2 will be the newly designed Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). This electronic data management system will track all activities and make this information accessible to researchers, to inform the following goals for Phase 2:
- To establish performance measures to assess the values and roles of various service providers, systems, and policies
- To create a common intake, triage and assessment process for entering people into permanent housing
- To better address the unique needs of vulnerable subpopulations
- To focus on housing the chronically and episodically homeless (>$500/month rent)
- To introduce standards of care among service providers (aided by the Canadian Accreditation Council)
To remain effective, implementation of the Plan needs to remain focused and have the funds to provide efficient, collaborative and quality services.
Review
The Update provides clear target actions, and many of the actions seem connected across Strategies. Although the Update does not provide item-specific procedures, the Plan’s exceptional three-year track-record may be an indicator for the success of Phase 2. With Plans for housing Aboriginal and Youth populations, alongside the HMIS information tracking system, Phase 2 could prove to be the first and most effective model to reduce homelessness in Canada to this day.
The most obvious barrier to success for Phase 2 will most likely be funding. While the Provincial government provided up to 70 per cent of initial project costs, the not-for-profit and private sectors have been sustaining up to 40 per cent of these costs. To increase housing without continued Provincial government funding, the not-for-profit sector will rely even more heavily on private and Municipal funding. Without large government subsidy, project success will most likely reflect market ebbs and flows. Moreover, efforts to provide housing for the most chronically homeless will likely return without the success seen in Phase 1.
Unanswered questions about the Updated Plan’s Phase 2 include:
- HMIS is being built in consultation with the Alberta Privacy Commissioner’s Office. Who will have access to the HMIS information and to what extent can it be used?
- Are there long-term funding partnerships secured to ensure the ongoing maintenance of the Plan post-10 years?
- The updated Plan suggests the discontinuation of some actions, as seen in Table 1. What is the reasoning behind these discontinuations and will they leave any holes in the Plan?
- HMIS was launched in late 2010 and will continue to detect areas for improvement in the Strategy system. What happens if progress made over the past three years does not address needs identified by the HMIS?
- Typically, the majority of people experiencing homelessness are single males. Does providing a focus on addressing subpopulations limit resource allocation for the majority of persons in need of housing and other services?
Overall, the Plan has been established as a national success. If the multi-sector partnership continues with the same esteem and resources it should continue to provide the most important existing service for decades to come.
Read this report if you are a potential business partner (private sector), other funding partner, developer, housing service provider, related service provider, government official at any of the three levels of government, housing policy-maker, urban planner, person experiencing homelessness, researcher, academic, member of a citizen group, or interested individual.
Review by Teresa Thomas
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Thursday, 17 May 2012 
