Court Support

Trauma Helpline's goal is sequential and deliberately ordered: house residents first, then use that housing stability as the foundation to address needs and provide essential and life skills programming and employment assistance, so residents can move toward employment and long-term independence rather than remaining reliant on emergency systems.

We also connect with local court diversion programs, so that the most vulnerable involved in the justice system can be provided court support services, stable housing and wraparound support as an alternative to, or immediately following, incarceration; reducing the risk of them cycling back into the justice system.

People who have recently been incarcerated remain the Trauma Helpline's top priority population, along with Indigenous peoples and Veterans, reflecting the acute and often unmet housing need that follows incarceration alongside the documented, disproportionate rates of homelessness among all three groups, and the housing and wraparound supports will also be extended to chronically unhoused people in the region more broadly, giving them the same safe, stable space to move forward with their lives.

Trauma Helpline is explicitly using Norway as its reference model for this approach. This project adapts a similar model: rapid, unconditional access to housing paired with voluntary, ongoing support to an Ontario context and to the unhoused population. Recognizing that a program's value as "Housing First" depends on genuine fidelity to the model's core principles, not simply the name, this project is designed so every element: unconditional access, client choice of standalone housing, and voluntary wraparound supports that is delivered as intended, and program fidelity will be an explicit part of ongoing evaluation and reporting.

This choice of model is also supported by comparative research: the Aboriginal Housing Management Association's review of Aboriginal homelessness programming found that, compared to traditional "treatment first" models requiring sobriety and "housing readiness" before permanent housing is offered, Housing First costs less, keeps participants housed longer, reduces hospital stays, and does not increase substance use relative to treatment-first approaches