Regina YWCA aims to house 240 homeless people by 2018

Two hundred and forty individuals and families. That’s Regina’s homeless population, according the YWCA.

The organization arrived at that number after looking at counting the number of names 15 homeless-serving agencies collected while serving people between Nov. 21-25.

This was done as part of the national 20,000 Homes program, an initiative that aims to house that many homeless people by July 1, 2018.

“It’s a targeted push to get as many people into our Coordinated Housing Intake Process (CHIP) as we can,” YWCA Senior Director of Housing Hillary Aitken.

“We now have 240 people waiting for services, waiting for housing and the supports that they need to maintain housing.”

The YWCA is partnering with the other CHIP agencies, like the Phoenix Residential Society and Carmichael Outreach for the 20,000 Homes.

This initiative is getting going as the similar Housing First program is running its first run of trial homes in the city.

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READ MORE: Regina’s Housing First strategy sees success in early steps

Kendra Giles is the Housing First program supervisor for CHIP, and said they currently have 20 people in homes with full-time supported living. The end goal is for them to live independently.

Giles said the people currently in the program have been homeless for years and have common problems.

“They’ve dealt with a lot of trauma, so it’s kept them from being able to access resources or get into any supports that would be out there because the majority of them face pretty serious addiction issues,” Giles said.

“That’s been a big barrier to these people getting supports, because a lot of places are substance free, so they aren’t able to get the supports they need.”

Aitken said that homeless women can experience additional issues on top of these themes, as many have children to take care of as well.

The people in these first Housing First homes will help provide a baseline for how much programs like this cost in Regina.

Once that’s established, both agencies hope to expand their working relationship with the City of Regina and potentially other government agencies.

“Other communities have had a ten year window to end homelessness,” Mayor Michael Fougere said.

“That may be an option for us, but it isn’t for me as mayor to say I want homelessness eliminated by this date in isolation without talking to our partners.”

Aitken makes the case that supported housing could also ease the strain on other services where homeless people may spend the night, like emergency rooms or jail.

“It’s not ok that our response to homelessness is putting someone in jail, or sending them to the hospital multiple times a year,” she said.

“So by housing them in a supported way we’re actually doing better for them and the system and resources too.”