Reaching Home Project: Youth Housing Support

Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy was launched in April 2019 and supports the goals of the National Housing Strategy, in particular, to support the needs of the most vulnerable Canadians; to improve access to safe, stable and affordable housing; and to reduce chronic homelessness by 50 percent by 2027-28.

Reaching Home is a community-based program aimed at preventing and reducing homelessness across Canada. It provides funding and support to urban, Indigenous, territorial and rural and remote communities to help them address their local homelessness needs. The main objective of Reaching Home is to streamline access to housing and supports for people who are experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness, by coordinating local services to achieve community-wide outcomes using real-time data.

The Reaching Home program at M’Wikwedong is focused on preventative measures for homelessness in youth under age 29. Reaching Home also fills the same roles as ISHP for youth under 29:

Indigenous Housing Outreach workers will assist individuals and families in securing safe, affordable and appropriate housing.  The RH support and emergency resources are available for individuals and families in crisis situations, transitioning out of hospital or living with the many challenges associated with homelessness within the community.

The Outreach Staff will co-design an individual plan with each participant as well as their critically important informal supports. The plans will be culturally sensitive and trauma-informed, assisting to identify challenges, highlight strengths and work together, towards important goals as determined by program participants.  The Indigenous Outreach workers will assist in:

• obtaining housing,
• moving,
• transportation,
• rent/utility supports and deposits, and
• transitioning to other forms of housing including home-ownership.

Jason Knoester, Andrea Scott – Reaching Home Youth Housing Workers
Office: (519) 371-1147 ext. 230
Jason Cell: (519) 374-7538
Andrea Cell: (519) 375-1468
reachinghome-jk@mwikwedong.com
reachinghome-as@mwikwedong.com