The Montreal program saves people from homelessness — with a cash “boost.”

The program, run by a Montreal-based charity, seeks to help Canadians avoid homelessness, which costs an average of $11,000 per person. According to Samuel Watts, it's money well spent.

“What we're doing is we're trying to catch and follow people before they become homeless,” said Watts, CEO of Welcome Hall Mission.

Called Rapid Access to Housing, Watts said the program aims to help Montrealers in need of a cash “boost” by getting them into a home and out of homelessness.

“We have people who go with them for a month or two, and then they go on their own,” he said. CurrentMatt Galloway.

The program was born in mid-2021, after intervention workers noticed that many people had become homeless since the beginning of the pandemic, and it does not fit the usual profile.

“(They're) someone who's a few dollars away from being homeless, someone who can't pay their rent, or they might be part of a classic rental,” he said.

“The other group is people who are relatively new to the city, who are suffering from the breakdown of refugee and asylum programs in Quebec.”

With funding from the federal and provincial governments, Watts says it has been able to house 344 people since 2021, with 84 per cent still housing them.

The longer someone stays in the homelessness ecosystem … the worse off they are.-Samuel Watts, CEO of Welcome Hall Mission

“I think it shows the success of a program for a certain personality type,” he said.

“It doesn't address the whole complex social problem of homelessness, but it addresses one very important dimension.”

Preventing the “perpetuation” of homelessness

According to Statistics CanadaIn 2021, nearly 1.5 million Canadian households were living in “primary housing need,” defined as living in inadequate, inadequate or unaffordable housing and not being able to afford housing in their community.

Watts says she wants to help people avoid falling into what she calls the “perpetuity” of homelessness.

“The longer someone is in the ecosystem of homelessness … the worse off they are and the harder it is to help them get back into housing,” he said.

“It's the new normal for them and they see it as a bit of a risk to go back to the shelter.” he said. “So we have to go in with people and show them that we can help them.”

Amanda Buchnea, strategy, policy and innovation specialist at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, says the Rapid Access to Housing program does a great job of addressing the “unique need to support people in crisis.”

“Unfortunately, a lot of our support doesn't kick in until people are very sick and on the streets for a long time,” he told Galloway.

According to Buchnea, most responses to homelessness have more in common with “emergency intervention” than prevention.

“So, some of these programs that provide housing, food assistance, some rental assistance,” he said.

“But we have to look further up. It's not something that comes out of the blue.”

Everyone's jurisdiction

Watts said the charity had built relationships with around 190 small and medium-sized landlords over the past decade who “understand what we do … and know that they will eventually get their rent paid”.

Feriel Manai is one of such owners, Placed three people through the Welcome Hall Mission program.

“You always have to give people a chance. We cannot judge people,” he said Current.

“Everyone goes through hard times. There are times when we come to a land where we don't know anyone. Any of us can lose our jobs or face personal challenges. So do good to do good.”

When a program worker has an appointment for a potential new apartment, someone from Welcome Hall Mission accompanies them. The arrangement is “usually well received,” Watts said.

“A landlord wants to rent to someone they can be sure will pay the rent,” he said. “Here, organizations like ours (come in). We have been working since 1892. We are well known in the city.”

According to Buchnea, all the tools are there to fight homelessness – it's just a matter of getting all levels of government to work on it.

“It's nobody's jurisdiction, but everybody needs a place to live,” he said.

“Instead of all of us pooling those resources and working like little pockets to do these great things and make them all into a real safety net for the people who are responsible for them wherever they are … I think. we can really make a difference.”