Founded in 1983, Homes First develops and provides affordable housing for homeless people in Toronto. Taking a housing-first approach, the charity recognizes that finding people a permanent home is the first step to breaking the poverty cycle. Homes First reports that 8,715 people are homeless in Toronto each night, of which 48% have been homeless for at least six months. The charity’s focus is supportive housing, but it also runs programs like Harm Reduction, Emergency Shelter, and Access to Education. The charity does not provide a breakdown of spending on its programs.

Homes First currently owns and/or manages 18 buildings in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). These buildings provide overnight shelter, transitional housing, shared accommodation, and independent living opportunities. The goal is to transition people into safe, permanent housing. In F2020, Homes First provided 405 people supportive housing and served 806,585 meals. The charity also made 12,621 referrals and connections to community programs and services.

In F2020, Homes First launched a winter respite program. The program has 100 beds and provides low-barrier access to meals and services for those who do not use traditional shelters. Additionally, Homes First opened two warming centres, which have 72 beds combined. In total, Homes First provided 255,700 nights of emergency shelter in F2020.

In F2020, Homes First created its first scholarship: Access to Education. The scholarship helps Black, Indigenous, and people of colour pursue their educational goals. The charity received 23 applications and awarded bursaries to ten staff and one resident.

Charity Intelligence consolidated the financial statements of Homes First Society and Homes First Foundation in the following financial analysis.

In F2020, Homes First had total donations of $652k. The charity also received $36.6m in government funding and $1.5m in rental revenue. Government funding represented 94% of total revenues in F2020.

Homes First Society does not report administrative and fundraising costs. Ci was only able to report fundraising and administrative costs from Homes First Foundation. As a result, Ci could not calculate overhead spending and program cost coverage accurately. Considering only Homes First Foundation, administrative costs are less than 1% of total revenues and fundraising costs are 2% of donations. This means that for every dollar donated, 98 cents go to the cause. This is outside Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending, since overhead costs this low are extremely rare and often inaccurate.

Homes First has $3.1m in funding reserves, once $6.7m in debt is accounted for. Excluding debt, Homes First could cover 26% or three months of program costs with reserves.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to Homes First for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 22, 2021 by Sydney Olexa.

This charity report and analysis is generously funded by the E.W. Bickle Foundation to share with Canadian donors.