Q&A: How this Southwestern Ontario county is helping house its homeless

Lambton County has successfully housed more than 240 people. 

The region in Southwestern Ontario introduced a homelessness prevention team that brings together several agencies and departments to help people in need. The program recently won a Local Municipal Champion Award from the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association for its approach.

Valerie Colasanti, general manager for the County of Lambton's social services division, spoke to Afternoon Drive host Allison Devereaux about their success. 

This interview has been edited for clarity.

AD: Tell us how this team came about.

VC:  We actually started with the start of COVID. Like many communities, Lambton County saw a drastic increase in households experiencing homelessness at the onset of the pandemic. On a typical night pre pandemic we would support approximately 60 individuals in our emergency housing system. Within a few months of the pandemic's onset, despite our widespread coordinated efforts for diversion, our community peaked at more than 200 and individuals in emergency housing.and it just kept expanding, it was over 400%. So that was when we started looking at this integrated approach to dealing with homelessness.AD: So can you walk us through how it actually works?VC: We  worked with our housing department, and our Ontario Works department -- which is often the first point of entry into the homeless system, because people are applying for emergency assistance, with their income stopping as jobs ended and people were laid off through COVID. While all of those teams worked for the the County of Lambton, they were all very siloed. They're all funded by different ministries provincially. We brought them all together to provide coordinated case management in a person-centred approach, in a very holistic approach. Because of that collaboration and our consistent collaboration along the way, we've really seen the successes,AD:  Why do you think it was successful?VC:   I do think that human service integration is very important when you're working with families and individuals.  So they would just have to meet with one individual and that individual made sure that they were housed through the emergency shelter and then started to move along the continuum. They would do the housing application with them, they would make sure that they were receiving the appropriate financial assistance, working with them to find temporary jobs, things like that.  And of course we also partnered with many other community agencies including the Canadian Mental Health Association, our local shelter service, paramedics, public health. There were so many other agencies involved. But it was that core group.working very closely with the individual. I think that made it very.successful. I'm sure they formed some special relationships as well. And one of the things we learned was to really celebrate those small successes, those little wins -- when someone found employment or if someone was connected to primary care, the group celebrated every one of those wins, and the relationship didn't end there. 

We also started what is called a short term rent supplement --  additional dollars to be able to provide that funding to individuals to pay their rent and we got creative. People got to know each other and shelter. So sometimes two individuals would decide that they would take a unit that provided them with more dollars to be able to find something. So we used a lot of creativity.AD: When you talk about a landlord engagement person, what sort of barriers or challenge challenges would that point person be trying to overcome?VC: Well, I think there's certainly some stigmas. People might feel that they don't want to to rent to someone who's coming from shelter. I think people don't realize we have people living in our shelter system who have employment (but) through different circumstances they they've ended up homeless. So I think it was doing the educational piece with the with the landlord, doing things like paying the rent directly but building that relationship. And if you had one successful tenant then they would reach back out to us for another unit if it came up.

We also provided supports to the landlord once someone was placed, so if there were challenges they could reach back out to us. And most of the tenants had a community support worker who would be working with them on any barriers they might have and assist them  So I think putting all of those supports in place was really, really important.AD: Since the homelessness crisis still seems to be growing, how would you like to see your program grow and continue to respond?VC: I think our program is going to grow just because you're right, the homeless crisis is certainly not over and vacancy rates are very low. We've got some long term work to do. So I'm hoping that while the team keeps this work going, some of that long term advocacy around increasing the social assistance rates, building more affordable housing, building more supportive housing can happen so that the team has places to move individuals into. That's the work that really needs to happen right now.