Close to Home – Housing First for Youth in the Cowichan Region

Cowichan Housing Association piloted a project titled Close to Home: Housing First to Address Youth Homelessness in the Cowichan Valley.
 
The objective of this 12 months project was to pilot and establish a Housing First Coalition – a body of community stakeholders and at-risk youth – to help develop a Youth Homelessness and Housing strategy.
 
The Cowichan Region completed a needs assessment and best practices analysis to determine the needs of homeless youth and Indigenous youth in the region. By developing a Housing First strategy with a youth housing lens, the project established a foundation on which to address chronic homelessness of youth and concurrent issues of mental health/substance use, children in care, domestic violence, alcohol-related deaths and poverty in the Cowichan Region.
 
This project was funded in part by the Government of Canada's Homelessness Partnering Strategy’s Innovative Solutions to Homelessness program. The opinions and interpretations provided in the publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Government of Canada.

Publication Date: 
2019
Location: 
Duncan, BC, Canada