Ottawa Mission hopeful news rules for homeless strategy will mean more housing

By Stuart McGinn

Cities working to get homeless Canadians off the streets and into homes will be given more money and fewer spending restrictions under a revamp of the Liberal government's centrepiece homelessness program.

The Liberals took a long look at the program after hearing complaints from cities about cumbersome reporting requirements, inadequate funding and unrealistic expectations about how quickly the money should be spent.
     
Under new rules being unveiled Monday, cities will be given leeway to spend money on local initiatives and experiments, so long as they can meet the federal government's goal of cutting in half the number of chronic homeless people in their midst.

“It's always a relief and comforting to see that discussion happening, and the fact that it's happening from the federal government is a good thing,” said Peter Tilley, the Executive Director of the Ottawa Mission. 

He told 1310 NEWS while the details on how the new rules will be implemented were immediately made clear, the rules encourage a stronger focus on housing first when dealing with homelessness in our country. 

“We'd like to see opportunities of more money coming in to help people get housed and helping other organizations like our own house those people,” said Tilley. 

He added that in 2017, the Ottawa Mission housed a total of 201 people. But, in Ottawa alone, there remains a list of 10,000 people that waiting to get social housing. 

“It's a high reaching goal to reduce it by half,” Tilley said, speaking about the government's requirement for cities to reduce their chronic homeless numbers by 50%. “But I'd love to be part of that and part of that conversation and initiative to make it happen.” 

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