Access to Budget 2024 funding for Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy

Summary

Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy is the Government of Canada’s flagship homelessness program. The Government has allocated approximately $5 billion to Reaching Home from 2019-20 to 2027-28 with the goal of preventing and reducing homelessness. The vast majority of Reaching Home funds are delivered through five core streams: Designated Communities, Indigenous Homelessness, Rural and Remote Homelessness, Territorial Homelessness, and Distinctions-based Approaches. With respect to the first four streams, funding is delivered through a Community Entity model in which an organization (e.g., municipality or non-profit) is responsible for identifying and managing projects in their respective community, based on locally-identified needs and priorities.

Most recently, Budget 2024 invested approximately $1 billion from 2024-25 to 2027-28 in Reaching Home to maintain recipients’ funding stability, as well as provide additional top-up funding in recognition of increased needs. This funding is contributing to the program’s ultimate outcome of preventing and reducing homelessness.

Budget 2024 funding for Reaching Home includes funding specifically earmarked for Indigenous homelessness responses and Indigenous recipients via the Indigenous Homelessness and Distinctions-based Approaches streams. As aligned with the permanent bilateral mechanisms, the latter provides funding for First Nations, Métis and Inuit partners for the co-development of distinctions-based approaches, including funding for modern treaty holders that have provisions within their treaties for the delivery of social services. This funding is intended to advance reconciliation and the federal government's nation-to-nation, Inuit-Crown, and government-to-government relationships, and to ensure that federal obligations pertaining to the delivery of federal programs and services within modern treaty holders’ area of responsibility are upheld.

Key findings from the strategic environmental analysis

Budget 2024 funding is primarily flowing via existing recipients who have the flexibility to identify and manage a wide range of projects, based on locally-identified needs and priorities. Although funding is predominantly used for services and supports, recipients may choose to fund certain capital projects according to their priorities, as eligible under the specific funding stream. This could have an impact on greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity, as well as other environmental effects, including:

• The construction and renovation of shelters and housing would increase greenhouse gas emissions during construction and operation phases.
• The construction of new shelters and buildings on previously vegetated land could have a negative impact on biodiversity, species at risk and/or natural carbon sinks (e.g., destruction of habitats).
• The construction of new shelters and buildings could also result in noise, soil and air pollution (e.g., construction could result in the generation of liquid effluents and subsequent pollution of soil), as well as enable the use and disposal of hazardous materials.

Despite these risks, at most, these would likely be limited to local areas that are already developed and be of a very low magnitude given the anticipated size of projects (e.g., the construction of a single building).

People experiencing homelessness are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change given a lack of housing, and climate change can also contribute to an increase in homelessness due to the destruction of housing and infrastructure. Climate change impacts may hinder Reaching Home in achieving its homelessness prevention and reduction objectives as communities could have to shift their focus to emergency responses, rather than longer-term measures intended to address homelessness. Eligible Reaching Home activities include those that support climate change adaptation solutions, such as:

• Expenses related to responding to emergency situations (e.g., floods, wildfires, building fires) that are tied directly to supporting people experiencing or at imminent risk of homelessness.
• Connecting people to more stable housing and delivering homelessness prevention and shelter diversion services to lessen the impacts of a climate change-caused event on a community, including the strain on the homeless-serving sector.
• The renovation of buildings to be more climate resilient (e.g., strengthening roofs to reduce damage from high winds). If a recipient chooses to allocate funding to new capital, they will also be encouraged to construct shelters and/or housing that are climate resilient.

Eligible Reaching Home activities also contribute to broader efforts to advancing a more climate-resilient Canada, for example:

• Recipients can expend funding for disaster resilience measures (e.g., responses to emergency situations).
• Funding can be used to mitigate the negative health and well-being impacts of climate change on people experiencing or at risk of homelessness (e.g., provision of cooling centres and other facilities can reduce cardiovascular implications of extreme heat and wildfire smoke). Funding can also be used to connect individuals to necessary health and medical services.

Key findings from the cross-cutting considerations

Implications for Indigenous Peoples

Incremental funding for Reaching Home is anticipated to have a positive impact on Indigenous people in preventing and reducing homelessness, particularly via the Indigenous Homelessness stream, the Distinctions-based Approaches stream, and the Territorial Homelessness stream.

The Government of Canada will engage with Indigenous peoples as appropriate and fulfill any legal duty to consult obligations.

The Department has established procedures wherein capital projects directly funded will be reviewed to identify any obligations related to the Impact Assessment Act, Northern regimes, modern treaties, or any other relevant environmental legislation, where applicable. Contribution agreements will reflect any applicable environmental assessment and Indigenous consultation requirements.

Federal Sustainable Development Strategy (FSDS)

Reaching Home contributes to Goal 11 of the 2022-26 Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, specifically the target to reduce chronic homelessness by 50 percent by 2028.