‘Hamilton solution’ for supporting people living in encampments taking shape

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Published January 12, 2023 at 9:58 pm

Friday marks one year to the day since local elected leaders voted to pursue the “Hamilton solution” to supporting unhoused people living rough in encampments, with hope of ending housing deprivation.

Next week, the general issues committee, which includes Mayor Andrea Horwath and all councillors, will consider a pair of staff reports that are intended to guide what was described as an “evolving encampment response strategy” in a City of Hamilton communiqué on Thursday (Jan. 12).

An estimated 1,600 people in Hamilton lack stable housing. Within that vulnerable population, an estimate last year said 80 to 140 people were living rough for a variety of reasons. Those include fear of violence, harm reduction needs and shelter rules that keep couples apart, and bar bringing in a pet. The city now estimates that after altering the approach last year, there are about 40 people known to be unsheltered.

Encampments became a common sight in Hamilton in 2020 and ’21, and the city resumed removals after an emergency council meeting in August 2021. Last Jan. 13, a council committee passed a motion, introduced by Ward 3 Coun. Nrinder Nann, calling for the city to move to a “human rights-based, health-focused” approach to helping people findv housing stability. A pilot project informed by that approach was launched soon afterward.

Just in the last month, though, a proposal to add some tiny homes was punted to this calendar year. And the city also learned the Ontario PC Party government, through Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark, had rejected a request from former mayor Fred Eisenberger for more funding to address an affordable housing crisis.

“Encampments continue to be a complex and multi-faceted issue and the result of several interconnected challenges, including a lack of affordable housing, subsidized housing, and housing with supports in the community, as well as low social assistance rates, an increased cost of living, substance use, and real or perceived barriers to accessing emergency shelters,” the city’s release on Thursday notes.

“There remains an ongoing need to align provincial health and housing and homelessness investments to provide permanent housing with supports for vulnerable houseless individuals with acute and complex health challenges.”

The two reports have spurred six recommendations, and 24 immediate actions that the city’s Housing Services division will be taking, if given the green light by council. (Fourteen of those action items have “no foreseeable cost implications.”)

The recommendations are as follows:

  • Expand and improve coordination of supports for mental health and substance use
  • Expand the use of harm reduction approaches in emergency shelters, drop-ins, and outreach supports
  • Address barriers to accessing emergency shelter (such as people with pets, couples)
  • Explore new approaches to encampment response, utilizing best practices and successes in other jurisdictions
  • Engage with Indigenous partners to identify encampment-related interventions that are culturally appropriate and rooted in the spirit and actions of reconciliation
  • Improve coordination and collaboration of encampment response teams to more efficiently address needs of people living in encampments

Those stem from one report comprised through dialogue with representatives of fields that support the vulnerable population, as well as consultations with 57 people who had lived in encampments.

The ranks of the first group included service providers in community health care, emergency shelter, housing, drop-in, mental health, and substance use. It also included experts in the social planning, research, and advocacy sectors, along with staff from the city’s public health unit, housing services, municipal law enforcement, and the Hamilton Police.

More supports, less enforcement

Nearly two-thirds of the people who have lived in encampments said enforcement of the Parks Bylaw has only made it harder to break the barriers to housing. As the report states, 65 per cent of people living in encampments shared “that they did not feel supported in their search for housing and conveyed frustration and concern that they would never be able to transition into permanent housing,” the report reads. They also “reported that the requirement to move so frequently has led to many missed appointments with housing workers and to view units, as well as lost (identification) and documentation necessary to access housing.”

Ninety per cent said moving frequently hurt their physical health. The effects on mental health (reported by 92%) and ability to secure housing (reported by 94%) were apparently even higher.

An appendix to that report also notes that several stakeholders “felt a designated area (such as a sanctioned encampment site or a Tiny Homes model) would be more effective than the current approach being employed.”

The other report that will be presented to councillors details the outcomes from last year’s pilot project. A coordination response team (CRT) from the city’s Street Outreach department focused on “service delivery related to encampments throughout the City, on a housing-outreach first approach.” Since funding ended on Dec. 31, the report recommends funding the CRT through the end of March, at a delivery cost of $350,000.

The encampment pilot helped 12 people in Hamilton find housing last year.

The recommendations in that report also call for appointing a manager and a project manager of Housing-focused Street Outreach, as well as hiring street outreach workers. The parks section of Public Works and the Planning and Economic Development Department would need to add three more permanent hires, and two Hamilton Police officers would come aboard “to support the delivery of the coordinated encampment response.”

All told, those hirings would add $1.136 million to the city payroll. That is about 1 per cent of the size of the Housing Services Division budget.

Based on the report, though, that is not much more than the cost of reverting to the “enforcement-only approach.” It suggests the city would be on the hook for about $710,000 in annual costs if it went in that direction. The likely outcome would be “fewer referrals of individuals in encampments to services that improve health and wellbeing, as well as emergency shelter and housing.”

Covering the salaries and equipment of those two HPS officers who are part of the response team would bring the tally to around $979,000.

In any event, the reports will be presented next Wednesday. The general issues committee meeting begins at 9:30 p.m. and is streaming on the city’s YouTube channel.

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