Housing Help Program – Trusteeship
As we shared in June with our first-ever electronic newsletter, the Housing Program at Community Care has experienced a major enhancement in program delivery following our successful submission to the Region of Niagara. Community Care of St. Catharines & Thorold is the lead for this enhanced housing program delivery, managing the nuances and needs of the increased housing challenges we are facing in Niagara, in collaboration with 5 other Niagara agencies.
One of the key programs is called ‘Trusteeship’, which offers a short-term voluntary for people housing crisis or at risk of homelessness. Currently we are serving 200 trustees, 87 are youth. The program supports people from entering or re-entering the homelessness system and includes housing support, referrals, case management, assistance opening a bank account, and assistance budgeting until housing is stabilized.
An exciting update with the trusteeship program is the addition of a second case worked, who is now able to provide more support to ensuring the youth receive more time for outreach, to check in on youth to make sure they are in school and safely housed.
We’d like to share a true success story with you.
A Youth trusteeship client, who has been in the program since 2017, and was originally living in shelter with no family supports has just GRADUATED from his construction program!! Throughout his journey, his focus has always been education. When he came to us, we helped get him housed and get him back to school. Eventually we assisted him to get onto Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). He continued to work part time while accessing the supports available to him, all the time focused on going back to school. He recently finished a construction program getting his heavy equipment license and is now moving to Alberta for employment.
