Hamilton will host a community discussion on Monday to tackle homelessness in the city.

Coming Together to End Homelessness will run for three hours starting at 3:00 p.m. at the David Braley Health Science Centre at McMaster University, and is open to the public.

Hosted by the City of Hamilton’s housing division, the event is an opportunity for the public and community agencies to meet and discuss initiatives outlined in a city document called “Coming Together to End Homelessness — A System Planning Framework.”

The document ties into a plan from the federal government, entitled “Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy,” to establish a co-ordinated access system to prevent homelessness that directs support and funding from Ottawa to designated communities.

The city is hoping to use resources from the Ottawa initiative to end homelessness by 2025 using a “housing first approach,” which offers permanent, affordable housing as quickly as possible and supports to help people keep that housing.

Monday’s discussion is the first of several gatherings co-ordinated by the housing division, which will also host a half-day public housing summit on May 21.

The latest sessions come just months after the city hosted the National Conference on Ending Homelessness with 1,300 delegates attending.

Two weeks ago the province pledged more than $1 billion in 2019 to help sustain, repair and grow community housing to end homelessness.

Over the last four years, close to 60 per cent of housing and homelessness spending in Ontario was provided by Queen’s Park compared to 17 per cent from the federal government over the same period.

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