Supportive Housing: A key Ingridient in the Safety and Well-being of Thriving Communities

Description

By Christopher M. Stephen, Date of Project Submission: April 2015., Completed for: Peterborough Police Service; Supervising Professor: Sharon Beaucage-Johnson; Trent Community Research Centre, FRSC4890 - Forensic Community-Based Research Project, The Peterborough Police have a great interest in social programs through their mandate of
community policing through a harm reduction model, which means understanding and aiding
where they are able in social programs such as supportive housing. The purpose of this project
was to determine the scope, amount and level of need of supportive housing in Peterborough and
the surrounding areas, and then to compare these needs and models to other communities to
begin the development of best practices that could be implemented in Peterborough. In these
comparisons, it was essential to determine the cost of these programs, and if they effectively
reduced costs and stresses on public emergency services. Major positive findings of this study
indicate that supportive housing is a reliable method for the development and support of at-risk
populations. While there is a lack of supportive housing for specific high risk individuals in the
Peterborough area, the framework for continued and improved support does exist. Finally,
supportive housing has been shown to drastically reduce the cost and stresses that high risk
individuals who would greatly benefit from support, put on public emergency services, including
hospital visits, emergency shelter use and 911 calls.