Collaborative for Health & Home

Access to health services should be available through the entire homeless system of care including shelter, supportive housing, and mobile outreach.

1. Sustainable funding for multi-disciplinary health teams integrated into shelters, housing, and correctional services;
2. Increased capacity for health and medical supports in shelters and mobile outreach for homeless Calgarians awaiting transition to housing;
3. Increased capacity for mobile medical and dental supports, including mobile palliative care programming;
4. Establishing a discharge planning process with Alberta Health Services, local hospitals, justice, and local shelters, and piloting step-down care for homeless Calgarians;
5. The re-purposing of existing long-term care facilities or shelters for end of life care and/or transitional care;
6. Support for a community health centre model in shelters that provides team-based care and addresses the social barriers to health faced by homeless individuals;
7. Increased efforts to attach homeless individuals to a ‘health home’ to increase continuity of care, in alignment with the Alberta Primary Health Care Strategy.

Ensure access to intensive case management and health supports as homeless Calgarians transition into supportive housing.

1. Increasing capacity in medically supported permanent supportive housing;
2. Piloting alternative housing models for complex and high acuity clients using multiple systems;
3. Building on integrated service delivery models currently being implemented in Human Services;
4. Increasing capacity in medically supported permanent supportive housing for seniors and homeless individuals with mobility challenges.

Integrate harm reduction approaches into the continuum of recovery services in recognition of homeless Calgarians’ choice.

1.  Using existing buildings to add detox capacity and other health programs;
2. Developing Managed Alcohol Programs that will fit within a supportive housing or shelter model;
3. Evolving palliative care systems to more effectively reflect the health needs and circumstances of homeless individuals, increasing equity in the end-of-life care system for this population;
4. Exploring new types of delivery models that support community resources that can build a context of understanding and self-determination that can facilitate the healing and recovery process for individuals;
5. Enhancing the capacity of treatment programs for homeless Calgarians with addiction and/or concurrent disorder;
6. Exploring safe consumption programs and adding capacity to replacement therapy programs.

Develop housing and health approaches that are responsive to homeless Indigenous populations.

1. Incorporating trauma-informed practice and training into services that support homeless Indigenous individuals in recognition of their experiences of personal and intergenerational trauma;
2. Integrating harm reduction approaches into services used by homeless Indigenous individuals to adhere to a person-centered approach and begin to create safer spaces for individuals to pursue recovery in their own way;
3. Piloting projects for the strategic placement of service navigator staff in community-based organizations to support homeless Indigenous individuals with service navigation and getting the support they need, recognizing that current systems and services have likely been designed outside Indigenous paradigms and with little input from Indigenous peoples;
4. Providing supports for Indigenous individuals as they transition from homelessness to housing, or between services (e.g. provide step-down care geared towards Indigenous service users);
5. Providing dedicated resourcing for shelters and permanent supportive housing to better support Indigenous individuals;
6. Providing spaces that support traditional activities, teachings, and ceremonies to engage healing (e.g a sacred space will be created to have ceremonies; a sweat lodge);
7. Integrating elders and cultural resources that support access to traditional teachings and Indigenous ceremonies.
8. Working together with the Aboriginal Standing Committee on Housing and Homelessness (ASCHH), and other Indigenous health and social agencies, to determine ways to increase the cultural relevance of shelter, health, and housing services, recognizing that there are many different Indigenous cultures that may have different perspectives;

Ensure open communication and access to information amongst organizations and agencies serving homeless Calgarians.

1. The formation of a working group to conduct an environmental scan of information-sharing frameworks, options, and barriers.
2. Broad information and data sharing between sectors and agencies, where clients extend permission. In practice, this likely means that all Calgary shelters will adopt the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), and opportunities will be thoroughly examined for information sharing across sectors, building on the work of Government of Alberta Information Sharing Strategy.

Develop specialized responses for homeless women and children.

1. Focusing on female long-term shelter residents, and piloting intensive case management approaches to assist them with moving toward a more permanent housing solution, using a gender responsive lens;
2. Researching the relative cost/resourcing required to provide dedicated services for women and women with children in comparison to services for single men;
3. Designing, piloting, and resourcing housing models that are committed to preventing family splitting (e.g. foster care models that support the whole family together in residence);
4. Focusing on research and planning for lifespan healthcare for women experiencing homelessness;
5. Coordinating service delivery for homeless women and children through an established Steering Committee (see Recommendation 7).

Advance the development of a steering committee/governance structure to provide leadership and oversight for moving forward.

1. Guide vision and strategy;
2. Support and coordinate aligned activities between agencies and government;
3. Work to establish shared measurement practices;
4. Build public will and support;
5. Advance policy;
6. At times, mobilize funding to improve the health care outcomes for homeless Calgarians