The City of Ottawa will implement a number of improvements to its supportive housing strategy after an audit found a “disjointed” approach to the city’s distribution of funding for programs and services.
A recent Ottawa Auditor General review of the city’s supportive housing programs found the “siloed” approach to administering provincial and federal funding to supportive housing providers is not meeting the needs of clients.
The city does not provide supportive housing, the audit states, but administers contributions from all three levels of government in health funding, capital funding to build supportive housing units, and operating funds for staffing and programming.
Auditors “observed a lack of coordination between capital, operating and health funding, causing significant challenges for the establishment and sustainability of operations of supportive housing facilities.”
The audit found “there are existing siloes between capital, operating and health-related funding to deliver supportive housing. The City receives capital funding from the federal and provincial governments; however, these levels of government do not provide additional operating funding tied to capital projects.
“The City is then left in a constant state of reactivity to try to find the operating funds to support this critical type of housing.”
The siloed approach “is forcing disjointed supportive housing programs and services,” the audit concluded.
As a result, those services are “not consistently meeting the needs of clients” and the inability to support chronically homeless and higher-needs people “creates further concerns regarding the equity of housing individuals.”
The audit found the current strategy places greater pressures on other front-line services like police, paramedics and hospitals.
The city has not established “baseline standards” for providing supports within supportive housing facilities, the audit found, “which has led to inconsistencies and varying formality across service providers.”
There are also “limited measures to assess progress,” and the auditor general said the city “lacks the necessary data to support decision-making as it relates to supportive housing.”
“Currently, the city and service providers are spread thin in trying to meet the complex needs and challenges of their clients,” the audit stated, as the demand for housing and supports is “outpacing” the city’s and the sector’s ability to provide care.
The audit made several recommendations to “address gaps and improve the delivery of supportive housing” in the city, including “an integrated and collaborative workplan to more effectively guide supportive housing operations, new development, and the allocation of funding.”
The city should also define its overall approach to supportive housing and expected outcomes in the updated 10-year housing and homelessness plan, and “establish clear, consistent standards… to ensure all residents receive high-quality care and to address potential inequities in accessing these services.”
City management agreed with each of the recommendations tabled in the report on June 6 and received by council at the June 11 session.
“Initial work to address the recommendations will start immediately with key deliverables anticipated over the next two years. The recommendations aim to address gaps and improve the delivery of supportive housing in Ottawa,” the city stated.
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