Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

The issue of housing and homelessness among people living with mental illness has been an ongoing concern since the de-institutionalization of psychiatric patients. Recent research has shown that housing services that remove housing readiness conditions by giving people immediate access to housing of their choice has led to a number of positive outcomes including improved quality of life, community functioning, and reduced reliance on emergency services. The proposed project is part of a larger initiative that aims to implement housing services based on these principles, also known as Housing First (HF), across Canada in order to establish a more holistic approach to service delivery. The proposed project will evaluate the effectiveness of a HF approach compared to treatment as usual in Waterloo region. The proposed project will use a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design, known as Regression Discontinuity (RD). The RD design will allow the researcher to draw comparisons between two groups of participants who will be assigned to study conditions based on a vulnerability assessment. Findings from this research are expected to inform best practices within the community as well as contribute to the literature on the planning and implementation of a HF model. A secondary contribution includes the re-introduction of a research design that may be particularly useful as HF interventions are implemented across Canada.