What Have We Learned

By: Arita Liu

Throughout the past three weeks, our team has been actively doing research and meeting with experts to discover issues of and search for solutions for homelessness. What we learned through our exploration process can fall into following four scopes.

Understand homeless situation in Tri-Cities

Homelessness is a complicated social problem. Each city differs in its homeless problems due to geographical, economical and cultural factors. Tri-Cities homelessness is distinguished with the fact that there is no permanent shelter in the area yet church plays an important role in providing temporary shelters and connecting homeless individuals with available services and resources. The reality that a permanent shelter is nowhere closer calls for alternative innovative housing opportunities.

Touched by community involvement

Last Wednesday we were in the food hamper provided by SHARE Family & Community Services Society in Trinity United Church. We had a chance to see how the church worked with community volunteers to organize and deliver the service and how the food hamper is a socializing event for the homeless families and individuals. It is a very special experience to witness the bond of the community in helping the homeless people. Through interviewing two volunteers, one of them used to be homeless and addictive to drugs, we get to hear homeless citizens’ voice on their needs and perspectives, which is valuable in helping us to adjust the solution to meet their needs.

Perceive from multiple perspectives

In the process of searching for an innovative solution to homelessness, we contacted experts from the real estate. They provided financial and economical advise on our solution and raised issues from their perspective for us to consider in developing the model. Hearing opinions from business professionals is inspiring because it makes us realize that people from different fields with different perspectives can share a same vision and collaborate with each other to solve a problem. Cross- sector collaboration and partnership may bring about some really innovative solutions by exchanging ideas and values and mobilizing social resources.

Apply knowledge to practice

It is amazing that we are given an opportunity to actually apply the knowledge we learned from the course Social Innovation to our practice of trying to come up with a novel solution to a social problem. We come to understand better that in order to bring about positive changes to the social problem, we need to think bold, actively contact informants, and persistently pursue opportunities.

A Novel Solution

By: Arita Liu

This model is using a community–NGO–business-municipality partnership approach to create housing opportunities for homeless individuals.

The novelty of the model lies in two aspects. First, it combines giving circles with real estate agents in creating housing solutions for the homeless. Real estate agents are involved to find potential investors and provide expertise advise on financial services and policies concerning property investment and management. Second, landowners/investors receive a moderate return on a social responsible investment.

By partnering with other NGOs, real estate, communities and municipalities, this model can achieve higher efficiency through the coordination among stakeholders in broader social sectors. By building on the established knowledge of NGOs and churches who are dedicated in helping the homeless and real estate agents who are from a vast business network, it creates a partnering network in which governmental support and communities are involved to help the homeless. Supportive services such as life and social skills development and employment placement through NGOs and communities are provided to ensure that homeless individuals integrate into the society smoothly. Involving supportive services and communities into the model ensures the efficiency and the effectiveness of the solution.

Economically this model is cost-effective. Instead of constructing new buildings, the model adapts to existing housing stock to serve the needs. It also holds an intrinsic value that extends beyond its cost effectiveness. Being housed in normalized accommodation in the community helps the homeless individuals to stabilize and be linked to community-based resources and services more effectively.

The sustainability of the model lies in the fact that there can be many potential funding opportunities. As long as there are well-designed partnering strategies, sustainability can be ensured.

As the British Columbia Housing Service Plan (2003/2004) states, “there has been a significant shift towards providing more community-based subsidized housing to assist those in need of housing and support in order to gain or maintain independence”. This model adds flexibility to homeless housing solutions as to how communities can conceptualize and implement housing solutions for homeless individuals.

Meeting with Homless Advocates

By: Ryan

This was a meeting attempting to teach people how best to help the homeless population. Mayor Gregor Robertson started the meeting off with an opening speech claiming that he wants to end homelessness by 2015 in Vancouver. He admitted this was a very ambitious goal but it was one that he wants to strive for.

Sue Noga then took the podium and discussed homeless action week which is taking place on October 11 – 17 in which affordable housing is the main theme this year. The discussions then revolved around how to set up your own event to raise awareness and help the homeless.

Many people are currently finding ways to better provide ID to the homeless as this can be a major barrier that they have to overcome. Some people were also organizing events that provided a repair service for bikes and wheelchairs.

If you want to organize an event to help the homeless the number one tip they had was to never give up! Another thing to remember is that people who are already well involved with the homeless are always willing to help so make sure you contact people who are already experienced in the field.

Gregor Robertson

Break Down of an Investor Giving Circle

By: Ryan

Currently you can purchase a 3 bedroom apartment at around $200,000 in Port Coquitlam so this is the price we will use to run though this example. We would need a 25% down payment so that we would not require any CMHC insurance so that makes $10,000 from each of our five investors.  The interest rate used is below the current interest rate on mortgages but we will be able to source this through a bank that is willing to help our cause.

• 3 bedroom apartment – $200,000
  • 25% down – $50,000

• Interest Rate – 4.5%($710)
• Yearly Taxes – $1,700
• Yearly Insurance + Maintenance – $3,400

• Monthly Total Payments – $1,135

With 3 homeless people combining their allowance of $375 a month for rent it provides a total of $1125 which can be used to cover the monthly payments that have to be made.

}3 Bedroom Apartment   $200,000

◦25% Down  $50,000

}

}Interest Rate  4.5% ($710)

}Yearly Taxes  $1,700

}Yearly Insurance + Maintenance $3,400

}

}Monthly Total  $1,135

Some Critical Issues

By: Arita Liu

There are several critical issues we need to consider in the process of the model.

It is critical to identify each partner’s focus, competencies and capabilities in order to facilitate collaboration in the network. In spite of the shared vision of reducing homelessness, each partner may have their specific value orientation due to religious, economic and social reasons. It is therefore important to evaluate the potential risk of value incompatibility and reduce the risk to the maximum extent.

Effective communication among investors and partners will be a high priority, which happens both before investors make the decision to purchase certain property, and during the time of jointly supporting the homeless individuals. A trust mechanism needs to be developed among investors to ensure the sustainability of the solution.

As we have a relatively complex funding environment which is populated with many potential funding opportunities, we need to find a way to manage and mobilize the funding effectively. Should we have a community foundation, or can we channel the funding to an existing NGO or a church, or are there any other options that serve our vision? We need to further explore into potential partners before we make the decision.

Incentives to benefit the investors or landlords need to be identified through various channels of municipal, financial and private sectors. More research into public policies and further discussion with experts and the investors or landlords themselves are needed to measure if the incentives will invite long-term investment.

Selecting clients is a complicated issue that we need to proceed carefully. We have worked out the criteria to select our clients, however, we will need to talk to outreach workers and homeless experts to further verify the applicability of the criteria. The selection criteria must be based on fairness and should not involve any degree of ambiguity or inadequacy; in other words, there must be well-grounded reasons for selecting certain clients. Again, this needs to be ensured by confirming with the experts.

A Flowchart to Visualize Our Idea

By: Jackie Go and Arita Liu

To illustrate our idea, we created a flow chart which shows the entire cycle of our program, from homeless client selection all the way up to the client being self sustainable and able to live on their own.

From the pool of homeless people, we will specify selection criteria so that low needs homeless people are targeted. Focusing on low needs people who are not addicted or hard to house will reduce the number of barriers our client has. Outreach workers and other homeless advocates can help our organization with identifying the appropriate clients.

The main benefit which our organization provides the client with is housing for a period of up to 6 months. Here we have identified 3 possible options for funding the housing unit. For detailed descriptions of each funding option, please see our other posts. Once we are able to fund the housing, we will work to coordinate job placement and support services for the client. The support services include tutoring, mentorship, and cooking meals which will be provided by community volunteers. The combination of support services, job placement and housing are designed to help get the client off the streets. Following this, we can start the cycle again and help the next person, using the same housing unit.

Legal Issues Regarding Property Rental In BC

by: Ryan Chahl

Our social innovation needs to consider different funding options. Our first option is to approach the church or community organization and ask them to fund the housing unit. The second option is to consider a property management scheme, where we would look for investors who would pool their money in order to purchase a piece of property together.  The investors would be able to have a safe investment in the form of the appreciating property as well as the $375 per month for each client who stays at the place as this is the amount of government assistance that is available for housing for one person.

Here is an overview of some legal issues we might encounter.

The length of time we rent a unit for can be any amount of time, this is decided upon in the contract.

The usual standard for this is the tenant takes a years lease of the property and once this is complete they can either re-new the contract or move to a month to month basis. The issue we will have with this is the fact the rent is for one year, for our purpose it would be a lot safer if we could go from month to month right from the start. Most landlords would not agree to a contract that give the tenants so much power but as we are a non profit organization trying to help people we may be able to find someone who is willing to do this as a gesture of good will.

Can we can terminate the rental agreement without a penalty?

The answer to this is almost always no unless the lease is up. The best way to resolve this is to push for the month to month rental agreement so we are not tied down to the property for a long period of time. If we can’t find anyone who is willing to do this type of rental agreement we will have to try and put a clause in the contract that allows us to terminate the contract after a period of time we are comfortable with. Once again this is not normally done but we will be trying to use our non profit organization to gain support.

How much will our rent be?

This is going to be one of the biggest challenges we will face. Rental prices are lower in the tri-cities are compared to many other places in Grater Vancouver but this does not mean they are cheap. We will be trying to find a landlord who is willing to rent at a very low cost and we believe the best way to do this is by searching for people at church venues where people are open to helping people who are less fortunate than themselves.

Another funding option: Using “Giving Circle” Investment Groups to Fund Housing for the Homeless

by: Ryan Chahl

This is an idea that looks for several different investors that want to be able to buy property but either don’t want to invest large amounts of money or can’t afford to buy the property on their own. With the housing prices currently low throughout Canada investors are beginning to realize the potential for long term profits. The basis of the idea is that the investors come together to make the down payment on a piece of property. Our organization then house homeless people in the property and using the allowance the homeless people get from the government we will be able to cover the cost of the investors mortgage.

This has several benefits to the investor:

• They have to put less into the investment so they are not risking as much
• Due to the lower amount needed it opens up the opportunity for people with lower incomes to own a portion of a property
• It is a hard asset that will increase in value so they have a long term return on investment
• There is less risk involved as we can guarantee their mortgage payments whereas if they rent it out themselves they may have times when it is vacant
• If they are part of a company they can advertise the fact they are involved in helping reduce the problem of homelessness though a social innovation.

These benefits will be used to attract the investors. The fact that mortage rates are currently very low also makes this a viable solution.

Homelessness in Tri-Cities

by: Arita Liu

In our research into homelessness in Tri-Cities, several characteristics of the homelessness in this area came to our notice.

First, Tri-Cities have the fastest increase of homeless population from 2005 to 2008 in Metro Vancouver.

According to the 2008 Metro Vancouver Homeless Count, there are 94 homeless persons in Tri-Cities, making up 4% of the entire homeless population in Metro Vancouver. From 2005 to 2008, however, Tri-Cities have the biggest homeless increase rate of 140%. Outreach workers in this area even found that the real number of homeless people is four to five times higher than the count. In the big picture, Tri-Cities have relatively smaller homeless population, yet with the fast increase of homelessness in this area, there has to be something done to stop the homeless epidemic.

Second, Tri-Cities homeless longevity is relatively short with a highest percentage of people being homeless less than six months.

The 2008 Metro Vancouver Homeless Count reveals that 48% of people who provided information had been homeless for a year or more. Among those street/service homeless people, 56% had been homeless for a year or more. Debate has been focused on the long-term mentally ill and substance abusers, but the new homeless represent different phenomena and require different approaches to a solution.

Third, There is no permanent shelter in this area whereas Ridge Meadow area has 19 shelter beds where there is a smaller homeless population.

“Three Ways to Home”, the Regional Homelessness Plan for Greater Vancouver Area developed by The Greater Vancouver Regional Steering Committee, maps out the three key elements to end homelessness — affordable housing, support services, and adequate income. Factors such as lack of affordable housing, poverty and low income require permanent emergency shelter capacity throughout the region as a link between homelessness and permanent housing. What makes the situation more frustrating is, last week, Coquitlam city Mayor Richard Stewart and councillors were informed that the permanent shelter planned for 3030 Gordon Ave. and a 30-unit apartment block at 528 Como Lake Ave. for women and children are on hold because there is no provincial fund available for the project.

Tri-Cities homeless group is small yet the situation is complicated. It is more likely to develop an experimental intervention model in this area, which is scalable and cost effective and can be applied to a larger area.