National Policy and Community Initiative: Mismanaging Homelessness in a Slow Growth City.
Description:
This paper builds on Barnes and Ledebur’s injunction that federal government policies should be “opened up to voices that speak for and about” urban-centred regions. The study investigates an attempt to provide national government support for programs to alleviate homelessness while avoiding centralgovernment dictation of community priorities. Such ambitions were implicit in the organization of the Canadian Federal government’s 1999 National Homelessness Initiative, in which the federal government set a broad policy objective, to alleviate homelessness, and made funding available in pursuit of it, allowing apparently substantial scope for local determination of how the goal
might be best met in each community.
One component of the National Homelessness Initiative, the Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative (SCPI), appeared, at first glance, to offer a particularly promising example of this approach. A community-written plan supposedly guided funding priorities and program goals. The mandate of the SCPI, however, was written to address the problems of such centres as Toronto and Vancouver, growth magnets with hot housing markets. The conditions of funding proved too narrow for slow-growth Winnipeg, precluding the types of solutions that are most likely actually to alleviate homelessness there. The priorities identified by community members and stakeholders were largely ignored, first in the creation of the community plan, and then in deciding which programs would receive funding. We find that the federal government recognizes the importance of local initiative in theory, but has in practice been reluctant to relinquish control, and conclude by offering some practical suggestions for letting go.
Type of Resource:
Journal
Publication Date:
2006
Volume:
15
Issue:
1
Location:
Ottawa