United Way York Region seeks permanent homelessness solution
Solutions start at local level, Zanott saysi

YorkRegion.com
Dec. 4, 2014
Chris Traber

Leave it to York Region United Way CEO Daniele Zanotti to put a weighty scholarly report into perspective with a simple prop.

“I take this with me wherever I go,” the impresario of presentation said, holding a bandage. “I don’t want any kid to tell me what I already know — that we’re a Band-Aid solution.”

With patented aplomb in front of a standing room gathering at the Aurora Cultural Centre, Zanotti capped Thursday’s morning long launch of Leaving Home: Youth Homelessness in York Region. The new study, involving 60 young people who have experienced homelessness in our communities, is a partnership between United Way, the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and York University’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit.

Long viewed as a big-city problem, youth homelessness is as real in suburban York Region as in Toronto and demands a co-ordinated, systemic response, according to the research, the audience, comprised of regional and social service leaders, advocates and York Region Police community officers, heard.

“For us to mature as a region, we need to cultivate other backbone organizations,” Zanotti said to the report’s focus on finding new ways to respond collaboratively to address youth homelessness in our sprawling region. “Despite our successes, we’ve had a bad time leveraging funding north of Steeles Avenue. We’ve had success to date on a regional level, but we’ve failed on a granular municipal level. We need to think local. We need to ask how we can engage our youth.”

Holding the bandage aloft, he exclaimed, “This just isn’t good enough. This report sets out the context and gives us a call to action.”

It is critical to provide a network of services in every neighbourhood, so young people can access support where and when they need it, Zanotti said.

There are many excellent service agencies and frontline programs, he noted, adding what’s needed is an integrated system approach to prevent youth from becoming homeless, stop the flow of young people from institutional care into homelessness and intervene early to help them remain in their communities.

“By working together, we can make York Region a national leader in the prevention of youth homelessness.”

With more than one million residents, York Region has a range of public, non-profit and charitable programs, systems and services for low-income and homeless individuals and families, York University professor and observatory director Stephen Gaetz said. However, in spite of some excellent programming for young people, many homeless youths  are forced to leave because they and their families are not getting the supports they need, the study found.

When young people leave their communities and move to Toronto or some other big city, they become even more at risk of victimization or exploitation and their health declines, Gaetz said, noting research shows there were multiple missed opportunities for intervention.

Some youth needed more family support to address conflict or abuse, some needed more support from school and others needed better access to mental health services and addictions treatment.”

The report and the depth of the data is the first of its kind, study researcher and co-author David Fleischer said.

“This is a very good start,” he said. “Awareness is a big part of the process and this study can effect change.”

A number of key recommendations are included in the report. It suggests developing a working group to address youth homelessness with participation from the education sector, child protection, mental health, youth justice, all levels of government, the homelessness sector, mainstream service providers and York Region United Way.

It’s recommends aligning York Region’s plan with the emerging provincial government strategy to end youth homelessness and to engage York Region’s public and Catholic school boards in an early prevention initiative.

Further, the study calls to support “harm reduction” approaches rather than “abstinence only” when working with young people at risk of homelessness and to increase young people’s access to and awareness of support and services related to employment, education, affordable housing, and mental health supports.

SIDEBAR

Read the report at homelesshub.ca/leavinghome.