Streetohome is not wavering from its success in facilitating a Housing First Approach in Vancouver. However, we can’t build ourselves out of homelessness as housing is only one piece of the puzzle. We must address root causes of homelessness including unemployment and addiction. Streetohome is shifting its focus to the second goal in its original 10-year plan: homelessness prevention.
After a broad consultation with the community and partners, and a review of what’s working in other jurisdictions, Streetohome is exploring opportunities to broker and leverage additional pathways out of homelessness in Vancouver which include employment and addiction recovery. As it did with supportive housing, Streetohome is collaborating with experts and reaching out to the private sector to move the dial once again on homelessness.
The ‘Streetohome Stool’ represents the individual needs that must be addressed for vulnerable citizens in Vancouver who are homeless, at-risk of homelessness or have lived experience of homelessness in order for each of them to thrive.
“No one knew the complexity of homelessness when we started,” says John McLernon, Streetohome Board Chair. “Conventional wisdom was that we have homeless people, we’ll build facilities for them and the world will be okay, but it was only when we started to really understand the issues that we realized that we had to focus on prevention.”
