Second Manitoba delegation headed to Houston on homeless-solution mission

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This article was published 24/07/2024 (409 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba politicians are making a second visit to Houston in less than a year to learn more about the Texas city’s housing-first model.

The latest delegation travelling south this week includes Housing Minister Bernadette Smith, the mayors of Thompson and Brandon, representatives from the Métis government, Manitoba Métis Federation and community partners including Main Street Project. Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham was part of the original group that made the trip in September.

The sprawling Texas city, with a greater metro population of approximately 6.2 million, is receiving international recognition for successfully housing its homeless population. Since 2012, it has housed more than 30,000 people — 90 per cent of whom did not return to homelessness within two years.

Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett said it’s important that provincial and city leaders are making the trip together.

“This is something that has to be taken on at all levels of government and all our organizations collectively,” Fawcett said by phone while en route to the airport Wednesday afternoon.

He is hoping the team comes back with a housing-first strategy that can be applied in cities and smaller centres across the province.

But new models don’t come without growing pains.

As the Free Press learned during a February visit to Houston, service providers and community partners there were initially shocked when they were told to abandon their previous siloed methods — prioritizing care for specific groups while competing for the same pot of money. To receive federal funding, the groups had to accept the oversight of one agency, get better at working together and start sharing data. Their new mandate was to prioritize people who were chronically homeless — meaning they were homeless for more than a year and had a mental or physical disability — and get them into permanent, supportive housing.

It has grown into a collaborative effort that’s largely been hailed a success.

Smith said in a news release Houston’s model will inform “an approach that’s tailored to Manitoba communities and builds on the good work already happening in our province.”

Her government has committed to ending chronic homelessness in two terms.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Gillingham said Manitoba “can’t just replicate what Houston has done, we’ve got to contextualize it for ourselves.”

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“But the principles of what Houston is doing in their model are principles that we, without a doubt, should incorporate here.”

The mayor’s adviser on homelessness and addiction, Jarred Baker, is in the delegation.

The two-day trip includes a visit to a “navigation centre” run by Houston’s Coalition for the Homeless, the central group overseeing the region’s housing strategy, and meetings with community groups working on the front lines.

— with files from Nicole Buffie

katrina.clarke@freepress.mb.ca

Katrina Clarke
Investigative reporter

Katrina Clarke is an investigative reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press. Katrina holds a bachelor’s degree in politics from Queen’s University and a master’s degree in journalism from Western University. She has worked at newspapers across Canada, including the National Post and the Toronto Star. She joined the Free Press in 2022. Read more about Katrina.

Every piece of reporting Katrina produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.