Discussion and education are the goals as the City of Stratford's social services department hosts a housing and homelessness community consultation.
City staff will attend to discuss topical issues, start dialogue and work towards solutions. Social services employees and their colleagues also aim to learn as much as they can from the community during the three hour event that starts at 5 p.m. on Thursday at the city hall auditorium.
"We would love to have some lived-experience folks in the room contributing how homelessness directly affects them, some people who might be struggling with their housing, or looking for housing, (and) people who are stably housed and looking to get involved in the community in some way," Alex Burgess, manager of Ontario Works, told StratfordToday.
"We hope the conversations are wide-ranging and go across as many topics, and touch on as many different avenues and areas, as we can."
The social services department is the lead on housing and homelessness and the largest contributor to efforts around pressing issues, with a coverage area that extends outside of city limits and into the County of Perth.
The consultation will include a presentation from the housing department, focusing on services offered, eligibility criteria, transparency around processes, and clarifying confusing housing and homelessness terms.
Burgess said there is a "service provider fair", of sorts, to start the event, to answer questions from the community about what services exist and what different affiliated organizations do.
Participants will be divided into four groups to provide input and discuss efforts by the city towards housing and homelessness. That information has the potential to inform the city's next housing and homelessness plan.
"We are trying to take as much out of this as we can and learn from the community. As much as we are a large contributor, one of the largest landlords in the community and a service provider and service manager for homelessness and housing services, we have so much we can learn from the community and we want the community to help inform us based on the consultation questions that we are going to be asking."
The event will include a short presentation, including some local data. Burgess said there are 153 households experiencing homelessness in Stratford and Perth County, and of those, 26 per cent were experiencing "unsheltered homelessness".
"There is a population that may be visible but some...are either sleeping rough, or they are sleeping in a car, situations where they need to be moved out of that, and that is our end goal...to get people permanently housed but at the same time seeing what else we can do to support the population."
The City's social services department keeps a "by-name" list, with every individual experiencing homelessness in the coverage area. It adds a name and a face to the numbers. Staff can keep track of individual circumstances so they can be better matched with appropriate housing options, Burgess said.
"It's about knowing them on a human level...that is a really important piece. How we can support these individuals and how do we modify our programs to ensure families and individuals have the support that they need?
"It takes collaboration across all levels of government. It is one of the few items that requires the federal, provincial and municipal government all working on the same thing, all moving in the same direction, all coming together to address the problem. To put it bluntly that is a challenging thing."
Burgess said city staff and colleagues from other organizations that work on the housing and homelessness file are anticipating hearing good ideas from guests that will help inform the work they do.
"We have staff out in the community every day, working with individuals to find them housing, to support them where they are at. CMHA has staff in the community. Community outreach workers are out there in the community.
"A lot of people are doing a lot of great work. We just have to find out how to do that that even better."
