Pilot project helps Waterloo Region families avoid homelessness

There hasbeen a dramatic drop in the number of homeless families in Waterloo Region in the last year thanks to a pilot projectaccording to a new report on family homelessness in the area.

The report, which was scheduled to bepresented to regional council on Wednesday,says that family homelessness was reduced by 40 per cent over the pastyear because of a partnership between social servicegroupsLutherwood, Cambridge Shelter Corporation and the YWCA Emergency Shelter. The projectbegan two years ago in Cambridge and expanded to Kitchener last year.

Van Vilaysinh,the region's manager of housing stability,saidthe goal of the pilotis to connectfamilies with support services before they need to use regional shelters.

"Whereas before, without that support, families would potentially lose their housing and end up in the emergency shelter and then that's when the support would happen. So, it's a little further down the river," Vilaysinh said.

In September2013, ajoint report from the region's social services and housing department showed a 229 per cent increase in the number of families and children accessing emergency shelter from 2008 and to 2012.

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The pilot project was created in response to that increase andVilaysinh saidit has beensuccessful because it provides families with a one-stop-shop for services.

"We used to put a lot more of our resources into the shelter services, so that when we actually had families in crisis that waswhen you were able to get some more services,"saidLynn Macaulay,who works for Lutherwood and helped develop the project.

According to regional documents, the pilot kept 96 families out of the shelter system between April and September of last year.

Macaulay said avoiding shelter stays is important for the wellbeing of parents and children.

"We know that the experience of homeless is not a good one for anybody andparticularly children. And there's now, sadly, a whole pile of research that talks about the fact that if children experience homelessness and are regular shelter users as children, they are much more likely to be shelter users as adults," she said.

Council will decide in the fall whether to make the pilot a permanent program.