The Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa is a member-driven coalition of people and organizations working together to end homelessness through systems planning and coordination, public education and advocacy, and community-wide mobilization.

Our Work

We focus our work on concrete ways to reduce, prevent, and end homelessness.

 

#OttawaNeedsMore Campaign

#OttawaNeedsMore Campaign

We need your help. 

Ottawa will be receiving a mere $845,000 increase, or just 0.4% of the Province’s budget commitment of $202 million dollars. Toronto will be receiving 60 times as much increased funding as Ottawa. Yet, we are the second largest city in Ontario.

Over 2000 people stay in an emergency shelter in Ottawa every night. Our family shelter system is more than 350% over capacity and we now have a waiting list to access emergency shelter, let alone housing. 

Make your voice heard, write a letter to help ensure we save lives and receive the care our community desperately needs.

Starts With Home Campaign

Starts With Home Campaign

Starts With Home is a city-wide non-partisan campaign to build public and political support for addressing the housing affordability crisis in Ottawa.

Alliance supporters can learn, connect in, and take action on the Starts With Home website; our new space for public education and mobilization. Join the conversation!

 

Scaling Up Non-Profit Housing in Ottawa

Scaling Up Non-Profit Housing in Ottawa

The Alliance has received a Maytree grant to develop a report on scaling up nonprofit housing in Ottawa. Working with Dr. Carolyn Whitzman, Adjunct Professor and Researcher at the University of Ottawa as the lead author and researcher, the report will include a map of suitable and well located government owned sites that could be used for nonprofit housing; a policy scan of policies that can scale up the amount and affordability of nonprofit housing development; and financial proforma modeling for four actual sites in Ottawa.

Expert Steering Team

Expert Steering Team

To truly create system-level change, we need the expertise of people with firsthand experience of homelessness. Our Expert Steering Team works together to bring their knowledge, strengths, and skills to the Alliance and working groups across the sector. Their work impacts the way we create policies and processes to prevent and end homelessness in Ottawa.

Are you or your organization interested in working with the Expert Steering Team? 

DASH Project

DASH Project

There is a growing demand for social housing in Canada. The Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa is collaborating with researchers at the University of Ottawa to create a dashboard that will integrate existing databases of people waiting for social housing, people in the shelter system, and the available housing stock in a given community. The goal of the resulting system is to support communities in making informed decisions that address the specific social housing needs in their neighborhoods. This project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

We look forward to sharing the final product with you when it is published in 2023.

Systems Inventory

Systems Inventory

Understanding people’s pathways in the homelessness system is an important part of creating robust coordinated access where people can get the help they need while only telling their story once. Taking inventory of all of the poverty-reduction services, agencies, and programs will help us build a more interconnected system of shared resources. Working together effectively helps people better access the resources they need. Together, we’re greater than the sum of our parts.

We look forward to sharing with you the results of our system inventory project in 2023.

Housing Leadership School

Housing Leadership School

In partnership with ACORN Ottawa, and funded by Ottawa Community Foundation, the Alliance co-designed and delivered the Housing Leadership School, a series of webinars, toolkits, and supportive FAQ content, to empower citizens to better understand housing policy, to advocate for change, and to equip tenants to know their rights and protect their right to housing.

These materials are now available on our website!

Vote Housing

Vote Housing

Vote Housing is a national non-partisan campaign, started during the 2021 federal election, designed to engage and mobilize Canadians to form a grassroots movement to rally public and political support for ending homelessness and housing need in Canada.

On National Housing Day 2022, we called on the federal government to implement the Vote Housing platform as part of a cost-of-living relief package. Not doing so will keep forcing families into housing insecurity. 

Will you join our call by signing the petition? 

More

News

Ending Homelessness Starts With Non-Profit Housing

By: Sophia Kelly-Langer

Take a moment to picture a person experiencing a housing crisis. What does it look like? For some, it looks like sitting out in the cold, hoping that the shelter is not full, so they can actually get in that night. For others, it looks like a family struggling to make the rent after a lay-off. It may look like a senior on a fixed income unable to downsize in their neighbourhood because there are no affordable options.

 

In the most extreme cases, a housing crisis looks like people living in encampments, some directly in front of Parliament Hill. These have become the only shelter options for some, including children and youth under bridges. The jarring contrast of the most vulnerable going without the basic need of housing just feet away from our country’s decision-makers is not lost on the people living in an encampment.

Deputation to the Community Services Committee February 28 2023

Watch the deputation here.

I want to start today with a reminder that homelessness is a solvable issue. We have seen communities across the country and the world reduce homelessness. Waterloo Region has almost eliminated chronic family homelessness, Edmonton, Alberta has reduced homelessness by 43%, London, Ontario has ended chronic veterans homelessness. And of course, the most significant example - Finland has virtually eliminated homelessness and core housing need. 

Increase Investment in Non-Profit Housing: Deputation to the Planning & Housing Committee, February 15th 2023

Watch the deputation here.

The fallout from the housing crisis means that as a city, we spend $30 million on emergency shelter costs every year. People experiencing homelessness engaging with police costs roughly $25M every year in Ottawa. We spend over $15 million a year on keeping people in hotels, because there is not enough affordable housing. Ending the housing crisis in our city means that we invest at least as much in solutions, as we do managing the crisis.

In order to make our city affordable, the smartest capital investment we can make is in non-profit housing.

Learn About Our Work

Learn About Our Work

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Get Involved

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Email:
Phone: 343-552-0202
Address: PO Box 22021, Ottawa, ON K1V 0W2

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