10-Year Housing and Homelessness Plan refresh - October update
Thank you to everyone who joined us for the Housing and Homelessness Leadership Session on October 6.
With over 100 sector leaders in the room, together we discussed important questions like:
- What indicators matter most to your team and your board?
- What do you wish you could track?
- What metric can you rally behind?
- What would it take to track progress more meaningfully?
Connect2Knowledge will publish a summary of feedback in the coming weeks, and the Housing and Homelessness Leadership Table will work to finalize the draft 10-Year Plan refresh to bring to Council in March.
Newcomer Reception Service Delivery Model
Earlier in July, the City of Ottawa’s Housing and Homelessness Services launched a Request for Offers (RFO) for the development of a future Newcomer Reception System Service Delivery Model.
After a thorough and equitable evaluation process of each application, Refugee 613 on behalf of the Collective Impact Initiative for Refugee Claimants (CIIRC) has been selected to co-lead and co-design the development of a permanent, sustainable and strategic Service Delivery Model for asylum seekers.
As the City’s co-lead, CIIRC will be responsible for collaborating with internal and external partners in the development of the model and will lead the community engagement process.
If your agency is interested in contributing to this important effort, please get in touch with Warsame Warsame
Housing Acceleration Plan
City Council approved the Housing Acceleration Plan earlier this month, including 53 actions, spread across five key objectives, to meaningfully tackle the housing crisis. It was developed with input from the Housing Innovation Task Force, which included Ottawa Community Housing, and was also informed by a survey of the non-profit sector.
The five objectives of the Housing Acceleration Plan are to
- Simplify the regulatory environment and expedite approvals processes
- Evolve city culture to be housing development friendly
- Introduce more flexibility in fees and charges
- Consolidate and strengthen capacity for affordable housing development
- Unlock urban intensification and transit-oriented development
Under Objective 4 – consolidating and strengthening capacity for affordable housing development, specific actions are required to target and support the growth of affordable housing. The Housing Acceleration Plan focuses on the following actions:
- Creating a 10-year housing roadmap for City-owned lands
- Waiving planning and building permit fees for non-profit affordable housing projects
- Enabling intensification on existing non-profit housing sites
Exploring ways to ensure long-term sustainability of the affordable housing sector
Ending youth homelessness by 2030
On September 16, HHLT co-chairs Kale Brown and Kaite Burkholder Harris joined Mayor Sutcliffe as he announced Ottawa’s commitment to end youth homelessness by 2030.
As we work on finalizing the 10-Year Housing and Homelessness Plan refresh, this project is a great example of how we plan to work together to implement the Plan:
- identifying a key priority
- bringing together key sector partners including Indigenous partners and lived experts
- using a data driven approach to target resources and develop solutions
- taking a coordinated, whole system approach.
Integrated Transition to Housing report
The Integrated Transition to Housing Strategy Close Out Report is now available publicly and will come to Community Services Committee on October 28.
The report speaks to the collective work of the sector and the City to support single adults experiencing homelessness, with clients transitioning to new, permanent transitional housing facilities including the St. Joseph Transitional Housing Program, and the Queen Street Transitional Housing Program.
The Interim HHLT had an early success supporting this work through a pilot project of an Enhanced Housing Allowance, which was created with the goal of housing 120 clients of the PD-EOCs and decreasing reliance on the community shelter system and Physical Distancing Centres. Through this project:
- 161 individuals were housed
- 14 new landlords joined the Rent Supplement program
The report also speaks to recent federal and provincial allocations that are less than anticipated, including under the Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP) and the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit (COHB) program.
City staff are working on a financial analysis of the implications of this funding and continuing to advocate to upper levels of government to ensure our homelessness response is sufficiently resourced. Any resulting recommendations would come forward to Council in Q1 2026.
Inuit Violence Against Women Shelter Groundbreaking
On October 17 the Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition held a groundbreaking at the site of what will soon become a home for Inuit women and children feeling violence in Ottawa. This will be the first shelter of its kind south of Inuit Nunangat, with programs and services rooted in the values of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, or traditional Inuit knowledge. Ottawa has the largest Inuit population outside of Nunavut and the community continues to grow.