Making Zero Count, an initiative led by the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, is helping Kelowna build on its Journey Home project.
After hearing dozens of different homelessness stories, they're working to map out how the homeless population can easily and effectively access the help they need.
On Tuesday, several Journey Home stakeholders, as well as people who have experienced homelessness at some point in their lives, took part in a simulation in which they had to navigate the challenges of a homeless person who is trying to access services.
"They've been given a profile outline, and their work is to complete a task," says Community Systems Planning Officer Kaite Burkholder Harris. "Some if it includes: 'I need to go get income asisstance,' or 'I need to go eat tonight,' or 'I need to go get a new ID, because mine was stolen at the shelter.' So it's navigating the barriers that people face on a fairly consistent basis."
Harris says the key to addressing the homelessness issue involves more than placing people in housing.
"If we can keep housing at the top, keep people housed, and support them in housing, then there's more freedom and flexibility to respond to the individual person," she says.
Gerard Joyal, a Convener with Journey Home, says one of the biggest problems to address is the many differing policies between agencies and services.
"Creating a collaborative system that actually leads one person to the next step of their process in a more efficient manner is going to be crucial," says Joyal. "Common understanding across the board for agencies and service providers is going to be great, but one of the biggest things that's going to need to happen is a public perception and awareness of what the experience of homelessness is like."
The end goal of Making Zero Count? Get Kelowna to 'Functional Zero,' meaning homelessness becomes so reduced that it's a rare and brief occurence.