Housing First and its Impediments: The role of public policy in both creating and ending homelessness

Over the last decade, governments across Canada have increasingly mandated that policies and programmes to address homelessness follow a Housing First approach. Such an approach suggests that someone who is experiencing homelessness should be housed immediately, and any individual-level factors that contributed to their homelessness, such as mental health issues and addictions, will be addressed afterwards. The uptake of Housing First has been fueled by research from Canada and the United States that shows positive outcomes for clients in areas such as housing retention and mental health. This report intends to add another dimension to that research by examining Housing First as a social policy in the Canadian context.

Publication Date: 
2017