In a report published in April 2025, the Action Research on Chronic Homelessness (ARCH) team from Atlohsa Family Healing Services in London, Ontario, shared a series of recommendations about how to implement Indigenous-led Coordinated Access in their municipality. In preparing the report, Atlohsa worked closely with the City of London’s Housing Stability Services team and received funding from Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada, but more important was their deep engagement with Indigenous service providers and people with lived experience. This engagement means that, as the authors say right at the start, all the recommendations in the report are grounded in intergenerational cultural knowledge and the collective wisdom of London’s urban Indigenous community.
Want more details? The full report is available here.
Why Does London Need Indigenous-Led Coordinated Access?
Across Canada, Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately impacted by homelessness. According to the most recent , they make up 30% of the homeless population while representing only 5% of the population of Canada. In London, this overrepresentation is actually worse: 30% of those experiencing homelessness are Indigenous while Indigenous people only make up 2.6% of the city’s population, according to the Giwetashkad Indigenous Homelessness Strategic Plan.
As well, based on data from London’s By-Name List cited by the report’s authors, Indigenous people experiencing homelessness are getting worse outcomes in the Coordinated Access system than their non-Indigenous peers. For instance, Indigenous people experiencing homelessness are more likely to have their level of needs rated as “high acuity needs,” wait longer for access to housing, remain in the system longer, and face limited access to culturally relevant housing and supports. The Indigenous homeless population in London is also more heavily made up of women, youth, and 2SLGBTQ+ people—all groups that have specific needs and vulnerabilities.
We also need to remember that homelessness has a distinct meaning in an Indigenous context, where it does not just refer to the lack of a physical shelter. Rather, it describes isolation from “land, water, place, family, kin, each other, animals, cultures, languages and identities,” as Jesse Thistle writes. Homelessness interferes with cultural, physical, spiritual, and emotional reconnection, which is why Indigenous-led, culturally relevant services and systems must be at the heart of any response to Indigenous homelessness.
What Is Indigenous-Led Coordinated Access?
For a Coordinated Access system to truly be Indigenous-led, it is not enough to just have some Indigenous people involved in the existing system. Rather, “Indigenous communities and organizations must be meaningfully included in the leadership and governance, the design of processes and services, and the strategic implementation of Coordinated Access systems that are offered to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis participants.”
To do this, Atlohsa is proposing to create a new system that would parallel (and collaborate closely with) the existing non-Indigenous Coordinated Access system. This system would have funding proportionate to the need in Indigenous communities, following a principle already established in nearby Hamilton: in London’s case, this would mean 30% of all homelessness funding controlled by the municipality would go to Indigenous-led services.
This is why Atlohsa is proposing creating two key bodies to support Indigenous-led Coordinated Access. The first is an Indigenous Homelessness Leadership Circle that would oversee the implementation of Indigenous-led Coordinated Access while providing leadership regionally. It would be created through consultation with and the participation of local First Nations, the urban Indigenous community, and Indigenous-led and Indigenous-serving organizations. It would serve a role similar to that of the Community Advisory Boards in conventional Coordinated Access systems and would explore seeking an Indigenous Community Entity designation from Reaching Home. The second would be an Indigenous Coordinated Access team made up of an Indigenous Coordinated Access manager, an Indigenous homelessness systems navigator, and an Indigenous leadership liaison. This is the group that would carry out most of the recommendations for how to build Indigenous-led Coordinated Access.
Building the System
With the funding and key groups in place, Atlohsa’s plan then involves building the elements of an Indigenous-led Coordinated Access system. The first important step is to study the data security and privacy measures in the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS) to ensure compliance with the principles of ownership, control, access, and possession, as described by the First Nations Information Governance Centre. The authors of the report call privacy concerns the largest drain on data quality in HIFIS, as Indigenous participants and service providers do not trust the system with their personal information.
Then, the number of access points needs to be increased so that Indigenous people can be connected with Coordinated Access through the organizations that already serve them. Many mainstream services are not culturally safe for Indigenous people, leading those to seek support from Indigenous-led organizations and services. However, there is currently only one Indigenous-led service in London that is funded to be an access point. An Indigenous-led Coordinated Access approach would need to fix this imbalance.
Once an Indigenous person or family is connected to Coordinated Access, the next barrier they encounter is the assessment tool used to evaluate their needs. The current tool implemented through HIFIS, the Vulnerability-Index Service Provider Decision Assistance Tool (VI-SPDAT), is not adapted to Indigenous realities and can reproduce colonial harms by, for instance, assigning participants a number and reducing them to what is “wrong” with them. Engaging with these tools is mandatory to access services through the prioritization process, but they are not culturally safe. For Indigenous-led Coordinated Access, a different kind of assessment tool is required, one that is relational and trust-based, developed in consultation with Indigenous communities, and trauma-informed and strengths-based.
Improving Processes and Practices
These core elements lay the groundwork to launch Indigenous-led Coordinated Access, but they are not enough in themselves to make it a success. In Atlohsa’s recommendations, the Indigenous Homelessness Leadership Circle and the Indigenous Coordinated Access team would need to host regular case conferencing sessions to match Indigenous participants with housing using priorities they identify through consultation. A successful Indigenous-led Coordinated Access system would also need to address the bottleneck at outflow in the current system, where the need for culturally relevant housing options greatly exceeds the supply, causing Indigenous participants to remain on the waiting list longer than their peers. This means creating more Indigenous-led housing and housing programs, which would need to include creating new transitional housing spots tailored to Indigenous women, youths, and 2SLGBTQ+ people, as they experience disproportionate need.
The full burden of providing Indigenous-led Coordinated Access should not fall solely on Indigenous-led organizations, however. Based on their research, the report’s authors state that improving cultural safety across the housing and homelessness sector through mandatory, ongoing training would increase the resources to which Indigenous participants can be matched. As well, the needs of Indigenous Peoples around housing and homelessness are not static—the Coordinated Access system needs to continuously improve its practices to address barriers and ensure the system aligns with Indigenous worldviews, cultures, and protocols. Finally, there is a need for more Indigenous workers across the sector, and these workers urgently require better working conditions. Atlohsa calls for appropriate resources to be allocated so that they can have adequate wages, appropriate benefits, wellness supports, and equitable access to professional development opportunities. This will increase retention and avoid burnout, creating a better experience for both Indigenous service users and workers.
A Call for Change
The Indigenous-Led Approach to Coordinated Access in London, Ontario report is a call for change that is fundamentally optimistic in outlook. The authors believe that, with adequate resources and support, the local Indigenous community in London has the capacity to develop new responses to homelessness and get better outcomes for Indigenous people in housing need. Indigenous individuals and organizations are showing the way forward here, and non-Indigenous organizations and advocates can help by amplifying the recommendations in this report and joining the call for Indigenous autonomy and self-determination in Coordinated Access.
Link to full report