The Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa's Besserer Street centre sees young people arriving with backpacks or hockey bags stuffed with clothes. Some have been couch-surfing for months, moving between friends' and relatives' homes. Others have slept in cars, tents or church basements. Many are fleeing violence or other trauma at home.
Yet, according to Kenya Fithe, YSB's shelter diversion program manager, most of these youths do not initially see themselves as homeless. 'Not at first,' she says. 'A lot of the time they don't actually know exactly what they need. They just know they have a problem, and the problem right now is they don't have a place to stay. Usually, they're just looking for somewhere to sleep tonight.'
Fithe recalls one young person who spent seven months living out of his car after being kicked out of home. Even then, he did not consider himself homeless. 'I stayed in my car,' he told Fithe, 'so I wasn't homeless.'
Shifting from Crisis Management to Prevention
That gap between lacking adequate housing and not identifying as homeless lies at the heart of a growing shift in how Ottawa's youth homelessness sector responds to the problem. Agencies like YSB increasingly focus not just on helping young people survive homelessness, but on intervening before it occurs or keeping it brief enough that it does not become part of their identity.
This change from crisis management to prevention has many in the sector hopeful. However, it also highlights the difficulty Ottawa faces in its goal to end youth homelessness by 2030, announced last September by Mayor Mark Sutcliffe.
Exactly how many youths are homeless in the first place remains unclear. When asked for an estimate, John Heckbert, executive director of Operation Come Home (OCH), replied: 'If you find that number, let me know.'
Personal Stories of Homelessness
Reuben Khaemba, 23, was living at the Ottawa Mission when interviewed, waiting to hear about an apartment he had applied for. His housing instability arrived gradually. 'It starts in the home,' he says. 'It starts with conflict with family, that sense of not belonging.'
Khaemba never had a close relationship with his mother. At age two, she sent him from Ottawa to Kenya, where he spent a decade with his grandparents before returning to Canada. 'It was like coming back to a stranger,' he recalls. 'She wasn't nurturing. I can count on one hand the times she hugged me.' She kicked him out of their Mechanicsville home when he was 18 or 19.
He bounced between temporary housing, roommates, shelters and precarious arrangements, including sleeping under a bridge at Lebreton Flats for a couple of nights. He did not consider himself homeless then, just in a bad situation. Eventually, he found work delivering appliances and moved into a house off Preston Street, but fell under the influence of older roommates involved with sports betting, drugs and alcohol. Soon he was back at The Mission.
His return to The Mission was when he began identifying as homeless. 'When I go there, I want to hide my face. I don't want to be seen by other people. You're in such a low spot, your self-esteem and demeanour changes.'
The Critical Turning Point
Nina Gorka, YSB's CEO, explains that the more time young people spend in homelessness or shelter, the more it becomes part of their identity. 'It's not just your own self-identification. It's how the world sees you. It's how services see you.'
That identity can form quickly. Young people in shelters or on the street often find community—people who share food, survival strategies and companionship. 'The homeless population has community,' says Gorka. 'Make no mistake about it—they take care of each other.'
However, that sense of belonging can pull youths deeper into street life. They become easy prey for drug dealers or sex traffickers. Khaemba recalls witnessing this at The Mission: 'Everyone there smokes meth. I had a lighter one time and I gave it to someone, and they offered me some to smoke. It's just that easy.'
Data on Youth Homelessness
Getting a clear picture is difficult. Data is collected through an annual Point-in-Time Count and the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS), but gaps exist. As data collection improves, numbers may appear to worsen.
Over the past five years, the number of youths seeking help from Operation Come Home more than doubled, from 356 in 2021 to 752 last year. According to United Way East Ontario, between 1,200 and 1,400 youths in Ottawa experience homelessness each year.
Shelters are overwhelmed. YSB has two shelters, each with 32 beds for young men and women. About half are designated as transitional spaces. The only other emergency youth shelter is a small overnight one at First Baptist Church through Restoring Hope Ministries, accommodating up to 20 youths on a first-come, first-served basis.
Defining 'youth' varies: OCH uses ages 16 to 25, YSB uses 16 to 20, and the city's 10-year plan sets an upper cap of 24. According to Kale Brown, Ottawa's director of Housing and Homelessness services, the city's focus on achieving functional zero youth homelessness by 2030 will concentrate on the nearly 165 youths aged 16 to 20 who accessed a city-funded shelter last year.
However, many homeless youths never enter shelters. They are the hidden homeless, moving between couches, cars and unsafe housing.
Diversion as a Solution
Diversion aims to keep young people from entering shelters when safe alternatives exist, or moving them out quickly. YSB's Fithe intervenes at the point of crisis, making frantic phone calls to estranged parents, negotiating temporary stays, arranging emergency rent payments, or mediating family conflicts.
'Often there's just a lack of communication and understanding that can be solved with a 30-minute conversation,' Fithe says. But the longer somebody stays homeless, the harder it becomes.
Mike Lethby, executive director of The Raft in St. Catharines, Ont., launched a program called Youth Reconnect in 2008. Initially focused on keeping youths in school, they realized the success was tied to working with family and natural supports. Diversion produced a significant finding: more than half the youths arriving at The Raft could be diverted elsewhere. Among first-time shelter users, diversion succeeded 70 to 90 per cent of the time. For those with previous shelter histories, the rate dropped to 30 to 40 per cent.
The difference was relationships. First-time homeless youths were often still connected to family and friends. 'The biggest indicator of homelessness—the biggest reason for youth homelessness—is family breakdown,' says Gorka. Heckbert estimates 40 per cent of youth homelessness results from issues at home.
The Raft created a formal Family and Natural Supports program, leading to an 80 per cent reduction in shelter use by youths and a roughly 70 per cent reduction in youth homelessness. Between 80 and 90 per cent are staying in their home communities and in school.
Upstream Intervention
Kaite Burkholder Harris, executive director of the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, says cities can move homeless intervention upstream. 'We can do that.' She points to The Raft as evidence: in a region half the size of Ottawa, eight workers focused on family and natural supports drastically reduced shelter entries.
Ottawa's agencies are adopting similar approaches. Operation Come Home has a prevention support worker, Rylie Hillier, who works with youths and families before homelessness occurs. 'The goal is to never have them walk in through the door,' she says. Heckbert says he'd like four more workers like Hillier.
Ottawa's plan brings together agencies through the Housing and Homelessness Leadership Table, co-chaired by Burkholder Harris and Brown. Mayor Sutcliffe also created the Youth Homelessness Champions Table, a coalition of civic, business and community leaders.
The ultimate goal, says Burkholder Harris, 'is a shelter system that actually has vacancy, so that kids can get it if they need it, but that the length of stay is as short as humanly possible.'
Hope and Challenges
For Idris Isse, stable housing freed him from survival mode. 'I can sleep properly. I can think properly. I'm not stressed all the time.' This shift—from focusing on survival to thinking about the future—is what workers aim to protect.
However, affordable housing is scarce, family stress is increasing, and mental health needs are growing. During the six-month pilot of YSB's diversion project, the agency turned away roughly 200 people due to lack of room. Their diversion success rate was about 30 per cent. 'Even when we divert somebody—which is great—there's always another kid ready to fill that bed,' says Gorka.
Despite obstacles, sector players are hopeful. Heckbert compares it to saving drowning people: 'We got really good at pulling people out of the river. Now we have to go upstream. We can't keep pulling them out. We have to find out why people are falling in the river and prevent that from happening.'
