One of the ways the United Counties assesses how many homeless people there are in the Leeds-Grenville region is by directly counting them.
Alison Tutak, the Director of Community and Social Services for the Counties, says her team maintains a “by-name list” that it uses to keep track of homeless people across various municipalities.
“Our by-name list is a real count of people that we are aware of that are currently experiencing homelessness in our community,” Tutak says. “Right now, that number is 106 for across Leeds-Grenville. That number has really hovered, we’ve been as high as 120.”
Tutak says that by-name list is updated weekly and has shown a ten percent decline in homelessness over the past three months. “That’s really good news, so, we’re celebrating,” she says.
According to Tutak, the United Counties attributes part of that decline to its focus on “supportive housing” meant to help keep people in homes after taking them off the streets.
However, she adds her team is worried about a potential future increase in homelessness caused by economic strain.
“We do see more people coming to our office who may be on the brink of homelessness,” Tutak explains. “We really try to see, their tenancy, can it be saved? Do they require just one-time assistance to help make their rent, and save that tenancy, versus becoming homeless? We’ve certainly seen lots of opportunities to become involved in those early stages, so they never actually end up homeless.”
Tutak’s team is working on a three-year plan to reduce homelessness further in the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville.
Details aren’t available yet because the plan is still in its earliest stages of development, but Tutak hopes to present it to Counties council in March.