“The Navigation Centre is a place to help navigate individuals to services… in the least intrusive way possible, so that individuals can get the help they need,” says Alan Peretz, Partner at KPMG and Streetohome Board Member.

Alan and his team of consultants have been instrumental in bringing multiple solutions to homelessness to life in Vancouver, building business cases of support for many of Streetohome’s innovative initiatives. The Navigation Centre is no exception, with a business case completed in summer 2020 that identified how a model could be set up to help improve service connections and navigation for vulnerable individuals. The centre would make readily available a variety of successful exit pathways that would meet varied needs and preferences, and divert individuals from preventable and unnecessary entrenchment in the homelessness services system.

The Navigation Centre concept originated in the U.S. with the aim of helping large unsheltered homeless populations living in city encampments, while maintaining the ability to have a space that will include pets, partners or groups of friends, and possessions (including vehicles), thereby limiting common obstacles to entering many shelters.

“Through the facility, these individuals will hopefully have the really great outcome of getting back into the workforce, back into their own home, and carrying on the life that they would like to carry on.”