Senior Services that Support Housing First in Metro Vancouver

ABSTRACT

Housing First is a model and philosophy for housing homeless people in immediate and permanent housing. In order to implement and deliver Housing First, research is essential to understand the system of support services as they currently exist. Guided by principles of community-based participatory research, this paper presents the findings from a senior-focused deliberative dialogue workshop in Metro Vancouver, Canada. Participants (16 service providers and 1 service recipient) identified services and resources available to support seniors in maintaining housing and barriers and facilitators for accessing services. Broadly, data were organized into seven themes: (1) Housing; (2) Home support; (3) Transportation; (4) Information availability, accessibility, and navigation; (5) Cultural diversity; (6) Discrimination; and (7) Funding and financial support. Results found that affordable housing that adapts to changing health conditions, income supports, health services, homecare, transportation, and culturally appropriate and nondiscriminatory informational resources are among the supports most needed for persons as young as 50 years old to succeed under the Housing First model in Metro Vancouver. Barriers to Housing First service provision, including rigid eligibility criteria for chronically and episodically homeless, should be revised to better support the growing number of older adults who are newly entering homelessness in Metro Vancouver.

KEYWORDS:

• Homelessness
• health services
• social services
• community-based service providers/systems
• housing

Simon Fraser University’s Ethics protocol number

2015s0542

Acknowledgments

We thank Chloe Good for valuable contributions to the coordination of this project. In addition, we acknowledge Sandy Biggerstaff for project planning, and we thank bc211 staff for assistance with data collection. We also recognize the time and contributions of workshop participants.

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This research, Mapping Metro Vancouver to Support Housing First Implementation, was made possible through the Metro Vancouver Homelessness Partnering Strategy Community Entity. This project is funded, in part, by the Government of Canada’s Homelessness Partnering Strategy. The opinions and interpretations in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Government of Canada.

Notes

¹ Although this may not be an eligibility requirement for all Housing First programs internationally, it is a requirement for the Homelessness Partnering Strategy funding, which is the national funding body for Housing First in Canada (Government of Canada, 2014).

Additional information

Funding

This project is funded, in part, by the Government of Canada’s Homelessness Partnering Strategy. The opinions and interpretations in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Government of Canada.