Housing First - United Way Central NB — Christ Church Cathedral

Great news! -- Approved zoning applications for TWO new developments for Housing First in our community. Many years and many partners in the making, these 7 units are another important step toward our goal of building 40 units of housing to foster safety and inclusion for people who have endured chronic homelessness in our community. One more step toward getting people 'out of the cold - for good'.

This step is an example of the COMMUNITY COLLABORATION needed to end our housing and homelessness crisis:

beginning with the collective efforts to create a multi-year plan to end homelessness (with specific targets, best practices, and models for change);
the creation of a capital fund to help drive the construction of purpose-built housing,
the dozens of private citizens and small businesses that took a leap of faith and each donated $35,692 to this fund;
the service providers who bravely moved to adopt harm-reduction and Housing First services to wrap around individuals who have fallen through the cracks of other models;
the private sector partners and individual citizens who have lent their time and expertise to reduce overhead (such as, technical drawings, architectural expertise, legal review, landscaping support, appliances, cabinetry, heating/cooling solutions, and construction);
the elected officials and public staffers who went above and beyond to educate their peers and advocate for new approaches;
our municipality that took the courageous and creative step to re-purpose under-used land;
the faith-groups and service providers that have opened their doors and minds to listen to our wild ideas about a collaboration;
the committee members who took leadership roles to submit an application to our Housing First Fund;
the evaluation committee members who carefully reviewed these applications;
the individuals and professionals came out at night to help with door-knocking and neighbourhood consultations.

One more step toward getting people 'out of the cold - for good'

It took thousands of hours and hands to reach this point.

We have many steps ahead but this is one hurdle worth celebrating!

When all 40 units are finally built in our community, we will not only be able to end the cycle of homelessness for people who have survived long months/years on our streets but we will also create a model of sustainability for many years to come! It is our community's collective vision that these 40 units will be owned mortgage-free by non-profit entities so that revenues from rent-subsidies can be diverted back into much-needed services - not mortgage payments.

All the front end heavy-lifting of these partners means we will create housing, reduce emergency services usage, generate sustainable funds for evidence-based services, AND save lives.

Congratulations and thank you to the thousands of hands that have touched this work and who will help continue to move this important work down the road home.

Posted by United Way Central NB on Facebook
21 November 2019