OTTAWA, November 14, 2007 – The HousingPlus Research Project, an innovative project that will look at collaborative ways to improve supportive housing and social services in Ottawa, was launched today at the University of Ottawa. The three-year project is being conducted by Ottawa’s two universities, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and ten non-profit housing agencies in Ottawa.

“This is truly a groundbreaking project,” said Dr. Purnima Sundar, Assistant Professor of Social Work at Carleton University and an investigator on the project. “It is the first collaboration of its kind and represents a unique approach to evaluating and improving housing.”

The project is based on the idea of “collaborative communities”. In this project, the collaborative community consists of the staff and tenants of ten HousingPlus agencies in Ottawa. Together with the researchers, they will look at their services, find common areas of improvement and take action to make those improvements. The researchers will also study how collaborative communities can come together to improve social services in general.

“This project will help improve HousingPlus services in Ottawa and will also produce new knowledge about how agencies of all kinds can work together to improve social services,” said Val Hinsperger of the Ottawa Supportive Housing Network.

HousingPlus, also known as Supportive Housing, is a cost-effective way to address and prevent homelessness in Ottawa. It combines affordable housing with on-site services that help people live stable and successful lives. The Ottawa Supportive Housing Network is a coalition of ten non-profit housing agencies that are working to provide these services and reduce the pressure on other more costly social services, shelters and emergency health care.

The HousingPlus Research Project is funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Additional funding is provided by the City of Ottawa. More information on HousingPlus and the research project is available at www.housingplus.ca.

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For further information, please contact:

Backgrounders:

• The HousingPlus Research Project
• HousingPlus Overview
• The Ottawa Supportive Housing Network