At the 2026 CHRA Congress, we hosted a workshop called Supportive Housing and Beyond: Shaping the Next National Housing Strategy. The session brought together approximately 80 participants from across the community housing sector to share practical experience and ideas on supportive housing, homelessness prevention, and the role of the federal government in addressing both. The objective was to gather direct, front-line perspectives that could help inform the federal government's refresh of the National Housing Strategy.

The workshop was designed as an interactive engagement rather than a traditional presentation. Each of the two themed sessions opened with remarks from sector leaders Mark MacAulay, President and CEO of Ottawa Salus Corporation, and Maya Kambeitz, CEO of Trinity Place Foundation of Alberta, and Victor Willis, Lead for the Toronto Supportive Housing Network who shared practical insights and examples from their work in supportive housing to frame the discussions. Their perspectives helped ground the conversations in the realities facing providers and highlighted opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and systems change. Sarah Woodgate, Founder and Principal of Splice Consulting, then guided participants through the discussion process, and helped synthesize the ideas emerging throughout the workshop.

Participants rotated through a series of round robin discussions, exploring common questions on homelessness prevention, service integration, scaling supportive housing, and the future of federal housing programs. This approach encouraged participants to test ideas, identify common themes, and learn from colleagues working in different communities and contexts. The result was a rich collection of practical insights that reflected the expertise of housing providers, service organizations, and sector leaders from across Canada. Those discussions form the basis of the key themes highlighted below.

Homelessness is solvable, not just manageable

A recurring thread throughout both rounds was a call to shift the sector's own framing. Several participants pushed back on treating homelessness as something to be managed indefinitely, arguing instead that policy and funding should be oriented toward actually resolving it. It’s this sort of ambitious, yet achievable objective we should be aiming for in this critical moment of our history. It would require a significant shift towards systems level thinking.

Matching supports to acuity is not a one size fits all solution

I watched participants spend significant time working through the relationship between acuity, density, affordability and the intensity of support a person needs. Participants clearly articulated that we need to understand that acuity and the supports someone might require is dynamic. A single individual will often need different levels of support at different times, and we need a system that adapts to that person's needs. We must build supportive housing with the acuity needs of people in mind. High acuity individuals often require 24/7 onsite care, while mixed acuity settings can work well at lower support intensities.

Indigenous led solutions and data sovereignty

A strong and consistent message centered on Indigenous ownership and control, both of non-market housing itself and of the funding decisions that shape it. That message didn't surprise me. It's why CHRA's Indigenous Caucus has long called for a For-Indigenous, By-Indigenous approach to tackle the historic housing gap faced by Indigenous people, particularly in urban, rural, and northern settings. Participants also raised the importance of Indigenous data sovereignty, the principle that Indigenous communities should control the collection and use of data about their own populations. To me, better control over data and its collection can lead to both greater trust and better decision making.

Prevention starts before someone loses their housing

Several conversations pushed the timeline back further, focusing on what happens before someone ends up without a home. One point stuck with me, because it came up again and again: if people don't have enough money to cover rent and basic costs, there may be no housing program that can fully make up the difference. Participants argued that income supports and housing subsidies must be part of the plan, not an afterthought. Rent banks came up as a practical, underused tool for exactly this moment, catching people after a sudden income shock and before it turns into a housing loss.

Measuring what matters

I noticed a clear appetite for better, shared data. Participants pointed to the limits of point-in-time counts, the likelihood that current estimates undercount vulnerable populations, and the need for a more connected national data infrastructure that could track outcomes like housing stability, education, and employment over time, not just a single snapshot.

What's next

Watching eighty people rotate through table after table, refining each other's ideas in real time, reminded me why we do this kind of engagement in the first place. Policy that gets built without the people delivering it on the ground rarely holds up, and this session gave us a genuinely detailed, honest picture of what's working and what isn't. I want to thank everyone who showed up ready to dig in rather than just listen. As we keep pushing CHRA's work on the National Housing Strategy refresh forward, these conversations are going to shape how we make our case to government, and I'm looking forward to sharing where that work takes us next.