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Winnipeg’s mayor is in Houston, hoping to learn from the Texas city’s experience in dealing with homelessness.
Scott Gillingham, along with his chief of staff, Destiny Watt, and homelessness adviser Jarred Baker, flew to the southern U.S. state on Sunday and return Wednesday.
While there, he has met with Mayor Sylvester Turner and Marc Eichenbaum, Turner’s special assistant on homelessness initiatives.
Gillingham said by using a housing-first approach, Houston has been able to house nearly 30,000 homeless people since 2012.
Although he’s not looking to replicate the Houston model entirely in Winnipeg, Gillingham said he was attracted to the city because it uses a single plan to co-ordinate its efforts with other levels of government.
Great opportunity to meet with Mayor <a href=” and officials from Houston this week to learn about the success they’ve had moving 30,000 people off the streets and into housing. <a href=”https://t.co/h3VI6zdlcO”>pic.twitter.com/h3VI6zdlcO</a>
—@ScottGillingham
“All parties that are part of the plan share data … with one another, and decisions are made based on what the data is saying,” he said in a phone interview with reporters on Tuesday.
The Houston model also involves significant public-private partnerships, as well as a “continuum of care” for people needing housing, Gillingham said.
The Manitoba NDP has promised to use the Houston model to end chronic homelessness if elected in the Oct. 3 provincial election.
The Green Party has also said it would adopt a housing-first strategy to end homelessness, while the Liberals have pledged to end homelessness in Manitoba by 2025 by providing 10,000 same-day housing units for people who are homeless.
The Progressive Conservatives have said their homelessness strategy included $58 million to build 700 new units of social housing this year.
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