Reaching Home

Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy is a community-based program aimed at reducing and preventing homelessness. Officially launched April 1, 2019, the Government of Canada's homelessness program supports the most vulnerable people by improving access to safe, stable and affordable housing. In May 2020, the City of Chilliwack was identified as a Designated Community under Canada’s Reaching Home Program, which brings with it over $6.5 million between 2020 and 2026 to be invested in local projects. Funds provided by Canada are distributed to organizations, that work directly with people who are at risk in order to provide opportunities to prevent and reduce homelessness.

The City of Chilliwack as the Community Entity (CE) carries the responsibilities of facilitating the agreement with Canada; developing and updating the Community Plan , which is used to identify funding priorities for Eligible Activities under the Directives of the Program; these investment areas are shown in the chart below.

Additionally, as the Community Entity, the City of Chilliwack is responsible for ensuring the Community Advisory Board, a local organizing committee for setting direction in addressing homelessness in Chilliwack, is active and fulfilling it’s role; managing and distributing funds to local organizations to prevent or reduce homelessness on an annual basis; development and implementation of Coordinated Access by 2025; and, ensuring that all of the necessary reporting requirements are complete as required by Canada.

The Reaching Home Program has five core community-level outcomes that guide the projects and activities, including:

1. Homelessness is reduced overall;

2. New inflows into homelessness are reduced;

3. Returns to homelessness are reduced;

4. Indigenous homelessness is reduced; and,

5. Chronic homelessness is reduced by 50% by 2027-2028.

2024-2025 Reaching Home funded sub-projects include:
See attachments below for City of Chilliwack funded projects, starting May 2020.