The solution to homelessness? Give them a home

-- Research analyst Bri Trypuc, in Homeless in Canada study

I have a different reaction when I read the reams of research about the homeless. My reaction has less to do with my jaw than my eyes.

It makes them water.

And it makes me angry.

At least it did this week when an email arrived as I was digesting the announcement of yet another research study of the homeless -- this time a federally funded national study that includes Winnipeg and will cost $110 million over five years.

The email that arrived so coincidentally was from Martha Grant, a representative of Toronto-based Charity Intelligence Canada.

"After reading a number of your articles," she wrote, "I thought you might be interested in a new report released by Charity Intelligence Canada (Ci) on homelessness in Canada."

The key findings were further down in the email.

It was the second one that stopped me.

"Chronic homelessness is deadly, resulting in an estimated 1,350 people dying each year..."

That's when my eyes teared.

At the time I didn't know why, but it occurred to me later that what made the number 1,350 so meaningful was the number one -- the homeless person I know who's trying so hard to avoid being a statistic. Faron Hall.

There was lots more to the report, but that other emotion -- anger -- was already drawing me back to reading more about the just-announced national study in five Canadian cities.

In Winnipeg's case, it will take 300 certified mentally ill homeless aboriginal people off the street and into housing that will offer them intensive followup support and services for 18 months.

Sounds like a great start.

But there will be another 300 homeless people who suffer from mental illness who will not get housing.

They're the control group.

The problem is, the latest study is not a solution.

It's simply the latest in a countless number of studies of the homeless.

The bigger problem, the awful irony, is the researchers already know the solution, or they should by now.

The best way to help the chronically homeless help themselves has been tested, applied and proven in other studies that show it works over and over across the U.S. and even in Canada.

Give the homeless a home.

That's the solution, or at least the beginning of the solution. Give them housing first and then offer them intensive support and treatment.

As Betty Edel, the executive director of Mount Carmel Clinic, said this week: "How can you say to someone who is homeless, 'Well, we'll give you a place if you sober up?' Well, a lot of times that's their coping mechanism because of all the fear and all the strife on the streets."

The model is known as "housing first" and it has not only proven to help the homeless, it's been proven to do it at a lower cost to taxpayers.

The concept was created by Canadian-born psychologist Sam Tsemberis, who's participating in the new national study that's basically trying to test the housing-first concept in five different demographic groups in the five chosen cities.

But the idea, I would suggest, is more about regionally tweaking rather than truly testing the housing-first concept.

Everyone involved knows, or should know, it has worked in Canada because the concept has already been piloted successfully in Calgary and Toronto.

As Tsemberis told the CBS Evening News two years ago:

"Housing is the cure for homelessness. It's that simple."

Yet, here we go again.

Another study to prove the proven.

Why not simply provide housing for the chronically homeless, thereby saving lives and saving money?

It can be regionally tweaked after the homeless get what they need first. A safe place to live.

But that would require the political will to actually spend money on people too many Canadians only see with their hands out.

So, instead of housing first, we have study first. Study first being the tired old concept where researchers have a field day and politicians take a holiday from responsibility.

I told you I was angry.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 26, 2009 B1