Local efforts to address homelessness are getting a boost from the federal government.
Lambton County is one of six new communities receiving funding under Canada's Reaching Home program.
The county gets $376,116 in 2020-2021 and $592,805 annually until 2023-2024.
Lambton County Social Services General Manager Valerie Colasanti said homelessness is often hidden locally.
"People are couch-surfing, they're going from place to place," said Colasanti. "We do have several shelters in Sarnia that people stay at, so we know that homelessness is there."
She said they're hoping to set up a coordinated access system.
They'll use what's called the Homeless Individuals and Family Information System.
"What we do is we start to put the information about individuals who are homeless into the system, see what the barriers are for them to having houses and to remaining housed. We'll then put a lot of wraparound services in place like Canadian Mental Health services, addiction, harm reduction and those types of things. We want to make sure that once we place them into a home, they remain housed."
Colasanti said as of 2018, there were nearly 200 people locally who identified as living without a home or precariously housed. She said they hope to do another enumeration soon because this year's was delayed due to COVID-19.
The Government of Canada said Lambton was selected for funding because of its capacity to effectively manage federal investments and improve local chronic homelessness by 50 per cent by the 2027-2028 fiscal year.
The communities of Abbotsford, BC, Timmins ON, Kenora, ON, Cowichan Valley, BC, and Chilliwack, BC also received funding.
