CAMH scientist leads national homelessness research initiative

“It’s unlike anything else anyone in the mental health field has been able to do before,” says CAMH’s Dr. Paula Goering of the Mental Health Commission of Canada’s (MHCC) national $110 million homelessness research initiative. Under her guidance, the MHCC has developed a unique and comprehensive national research plan that will find ways to help the growing number of homeless people who have a mental illness.

As the project’s research lead, Dr. Goering, head of CAMH’s Health Systems Research and Consulting Unit and professor in the University of Toronto’s department of psychiatry, draws on her expertise in homelessness and multi-site evaluation studies to help the MHCC design and implement research demonstration projects in five Canadian cities. The project’s primary focus is people with mental illness who are homeless, but each site will also focus on a distinct group of homeless people living with mental illness, such as urban aboriginal populations in Winnipeg and individuals struggling with substance abuse in Vancouver.

Dr. Paula Goering, head of CAMH’s Health Systems Research and Consulting Unit, is leading a national homelessness research initiative for the Mental Health Commission of Canada.

Uniquely, the government’s investment will allow project teams to implement a housing plus support initiative and study its impact. This approach will allow researchers and community agencies to work together, deciding collaboratively how to implement the initiative and what happens when you do so. “This is an extraordinary opportunity to put in place evidence-based practices on a large scale and find out how they work in a Canadian context,” says Dr. Goering.

This initiative will also allow a research team to compare the results of all the projects, as each support intervention must be based on a Housing First model. As Dr. Goering explains, defining a common intervention model allows you to do interesting comparison work that would otherwise be impossible.

But at its core, the Housing First model is focused on helping at-risk and vulnerable people. Providing safe and sustainable housing is paramount and unconditional in this model, as it’s built on the philosophy that individuals who have a mental illness and are homeless are more responsive to interventions and social services support that they choose after they have a safe and sustainable place to live.

Collectively, this national service and research effort will develop a body of evidence to enable Canada to become a world leader in providing services to homeless people living with mental illness. But, for Dr. Goering, “what’s really exciting is that we’re not just learning, we’re also doing something to help people.”

For more information see the MHCC Homelessness Research Demonstration Project or email homelessness@mentalhealthcommission.ca