The Provincial Government respects the role of the Auditor General and the work she and her office undertake to audit the financial activities of government.
However, the Official Opposition is deeply concerned with the report’s attempt to reduce the entire 106 Horizons initiative to a simplistic cost-per-person calculation. This approach fails to reflect the realities of homelessness and mental health and addictions.
“Mental health and addictions is not an accounting exercise,” says Leader of the Official Opposition, John Hogan, KC. “Reducing human health outcomes to a $700,000-per-person headline does not provide a fair or complete assessment of the program’s value or impact.”
The report divides the total cost of 106 Horizons by the number of individuals the Auditor General alone considers to have achieved “success,” while ignoring the broader purpose of the program and the complexity of chronic homelessness and addiction recovery.
“The residents of 106 Horizons were living in crisis” says Housing Critic Sherry Gambin-Walsh. “The wrap-around mental health, addictions, and housing supports provided at 106 Horizons have helped far more people than a single statistic can capture, and have very likely saved lives.”
At the time 106 Horizons was established, there was an urgent and immediate need for wrap-around supports for those facing homelessness and serious mental health and addictions challenges. Always intended to be a temporary solution, 106 Horizons filled a critical gap in services until community supports in the community could catch up with the demand.
The Official Opposition maintains that the value of the program cannot be measured solely by permanent housing placements and does not recognize the medical care, mental health support, addiction treatment, and life skills training provided to more than 150 vulnerable individuals. The report fails to take into account the 75 people who are still living at the transitional facility, the success of 40 individuals who transferred into stable housing and 35 others who could not or would not complete the program.
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