Manitoba government and community leaders who visited Houston, Texas, last week to observe that city’s celebrated approach to tackling homelessness returned with lessons about the importance of collaboration.
The City of Houston has housed more than 30,000 people struggling with homelessness over the last decade.
The success of the Houston model — which focuses on providing housing with wraparound services — has drawn attention from around the world.
A team led by Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham has already visited the Texas city.
Now provincial Minister of Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Bernadette Smith has returned from her own trip. Smith and other leaders, including Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett, spent two days meeting with officials and community leaders in Houston.
“You just can’t manage this as a municipality, or just as the province, or even just as the [federal government] or … a social service group,” Fawcett said.
“You have to have … an organized plan, and you have to all be on board together.”
While Brandon has many organizations doing good work, Fawcett says there needs to be a centralized way for them to share information with groups and governments in other cities.
Both Brandon and the City of Winnipeg use the Homelessness Individuals Families Information System, a database that tracks homeless individuals and the services they receive.
“We have to get [the federal government] to give us the opportunity to merge those [systems], which actually gives us a lot better information on how to work with a lot of people for their best interest,” Fawcett said.
Another challenge is a lack of available housing. Fawcett says he’s encouraged by the Manitoba government’s commitment to spend $116 million in construction and maintenance of social and affordable housing.
He’d like to see an inventory of all other available affordable housing options in the province.
Fawcett would also like to see more derelict and vacant houses turned into affordable housing.
“Some of these houses that are not good places in the community, that have lots of police calls and figure out how do we get [possession of] those and turn them over to a different purpose.”
The Manitoba Metis Federation also sent along its minister of housing, Will Goodon.
He says the Houston model benefits from having a single funder through the federal government, which makes it easier to get all the players on board.
“To have the federal government start to dictate — I think it would be a little harder to take here. But at that being said, I think collaboration is important,” Goodon said.
The key to success, Goodon says, is the political will to make it work.
WATCH | Manitoba delegation visits Houston to learn more about city’s model for tackling homelessness:
Manitoba government and community leaders who visited Houston, Texas last week to observe that city’s celebrated approach to tackling homelessness returned with lessons about the importance of collaboration.