Introduction

The federal government has worked together with provincial governments to respond to the effects of the pandemic within the houselessness community. They have enhanced and invested more funding into different sectors of the houseless community to help houseless people and prevent them from catching and spreading COVID-19. The sections below explain the six essential pillars that the Canadian government has contributed to support the houseless population. The next sections talk about specific funding that the federal government has invested in.

6 essential pillars in response to COVID-19

Utilizing a framework created by the Canadian Network for Health and Housing for people experiencing houselessness the six pillars are what the federal government compromise that they will be doing in order to strengthen their strategy to reduce the chance of COVID transmission.

• Enhanced screening methods
  • More complimentary COVID-19 test kits are provided to houseless people
  • Priority screening methods for houseless people in the shelter
• Sentinel Surveillance
• Coordination of health and shelter systems
• COVID-19 risk stratification
• Isolation shelters for persons under investigation and cohorting COVID-19 positive cases for community-based shelter care
• Priority COVID-19 testing for houselessness community as they are more prone to having COVID-19

‣.

What is being done now?

The Federal government has invested 40 million dollars of additional funding to respond to the houseless communities after COVID-19’s impact. ‣ This money will go towards improving the health and living conditions of the houseless community so that they can ensure a safer environment. The same funds will be invested into:

• housing services
• referral to services provided outside of shelters
• medical and health services
• client support services
• capital investments such as improving the quality of facilities for residents and toward necessities needed to prevent COVID-19 from spreading