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Thompson getting $1.7 million over five years to help prevent and reduce homelessness

Thompson is getting $1.74 million from the federal government for programming and services to prevent and reduce homelessness over the next five years, Saint Boniface-Saint Vital MP Dan Vandal announced at City Hall May 23.
Saint Boniface-Saint Vital Liberal MP Dan Vandal announced during a May 23 visit to Thompson that th
Saint Boniface-Saint Vital Liberal MP Dan Vandal announced during a May 23 visit to Thompson that the city will be receiving $1.74 million from the federal government over the next five years for efforts to prevent and reduce homelessness.

Thompson is getting $1.74 million from the federal government for programming and services to prevent and reduce homelessness over the next five years, Saint Boniface-Saint Vital MP Dan Vandal announced at City Hall May 23.

The funding is being provided under the federal government’s new national homelessness strategy called Reaching Home, which will spend $2.2 billion over 10 years to combat homelessness.

“By 2021-22, this will double annual investments for homelessness compared to what they were in 2015-16,” said Vandal, who is the parliamentary secretary for Indigenous Services Minister Seamus O’Regan. “Like the homelessness partnering strategy [that it replaces], Reaching Home will reinforce a community-based approach and will continue to provide direct funding to municipalities and local service providers to address local priorities. The efforts that you’re making in your community to reduce homelessness will help us reach our collective goal, our national goal, of reducing chronic homelessness in Canada by 50 per cent by the year 2027-28.”

An estimated 133,000 people experienced homelessness and stayed at an emergency shelter in Canada in 2016, the federal government says, and the new strategy was developed by engaging with Canadians online and in person. Reaching Home is helping communities develop and deliver community plans with clear outcomes and giving them three years to introduce co-ordinated access systems to prioritize people most in need of housing assistance and match them to appropriate housing and services. The federal government is also dedicating funding to reducing Indigenous homelessness and to helping communities create homelessness management information systems to give them a real-time community-side picture of the homelessness situation.

Indigenous people are vastly overrepresented among Thompson’s homeless population, making up more than 90 per cent of those without a permanent residence, more than double the estimated percentage of all Thompson residents who are Indigenous.

That was among the findings in the report on the 2018 point-in-time count that took place March 13-14, 2018, and counted a total of 130 homeless people, including 112 adults and 18 children. Forty seven of the adults and four of the children were considered unsheltered – i.e. staying in a place not meant to be a home such as a tent, shack or public place – with 65 of the adults and 14 of the children classified as sheltered, meaning they were staying somewhere such as a shelter, the Thompson Crisis Centre or a transitional housing facility. About 70 of the adult survey respondents qualified as chronically homeless, which is defined as having been homeless for six months or more in the past year.

“When one person is forced to live on the streets, we’re all diminished,” said federal Families, Children and Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos in a press release. “Homelessness is a reality for too many Canadians, and a challenge for every Canadian community. Through Reaching Home we’re working with other levels of government, NGOs, Indigenous partners, and communities across Canada to provide more stable housing to people living in homelessness and increasing support for vulnerable groups. This is only the beginning and one of many changes that will make a real impact on the lives of vulnerable Canadians.”

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