Built for Zero
What is Built for Zero Canada?
Funded in part by Housing, Infrastructure, and Communities Canada and part of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH), Built for Zero Canada is an ambitious national change effort helping a core group of leading communities end chronic homelessness and veteran homelessness – a first step on the path to eliminating all homelessness in Canada. Their structured, supportive and data-driven approach focuses on optimizing local homeless systems, accelerating the adoption of proven practices and driving continuous improvement.
Founded in 2012, the CAEH leads a national movement of individuals, organizations and communities working together to end homelessness. They mobilize communities to take action on homelessness and support them to apply proven approaches including Housing First, data-driven decision making and collective action to transform programs, policies and systems toward the goal of ending homelessness.
Inspired by Community Solution’s successful 100,000 Homes Campaign in the US, on June 16, 2015, the CAEH joined with Simcoe County and 20 other communities to launch the 20,000 Homes Campaign with a goal to house 20,000 of Canada’s most vulnerable homeless people by July 1, 2018.
CAEH soon realized to reduce chronic homelessness, they had to put much more emphasis on critical community strategies like using real-time data, creating coordinated homeless systems and embracing strategies for continuous performance improvement in addition to a focus on urgently housing our most vulnerable homeless neighbours. They re-grouped and redefined their aim to end chronic homelessness in 20 communities and house 20,000 of Canada’s most vulnerable homeless people by July 1, 2020. When they reached 20,000 housing move-ins in March 2019, CAEH again refocused their efforts and relaunched as Built for Zero Canada to support communities to reach functional zero chronic homelessness and then expand those efforts to all forms of homelessness.
Learn more about Built for Zero Canada’s approach to Getting to Zero.