It’s all about finding a place to live.
Safe Haven Perth’s Home Share strategy invites homeowners to open up their homes to vulnerable people for up to six months, with a goal of getting homeless people re-stablished with more long-term, permanent housing.
Executive Director and founder Baiba Wilde said the idea started after seeing how people were effected by homelessness while working at an Ontario community centre.
She was impacted by a contractor carrying heavy debt when the pandemic hit.
“Everything shut down but not his bank loan, so he resorted to trying to live without drawing from that money. He slept on the streets, he’d come to the Centre to get food, to shower, and over time he started to break down. Eventually, he started using because things were stolen from him regularly and that’s what its like on the streets. Theft is big, violence, and lots of traumatic situations.”
She said within two years, he was in jail.
Wilde said she took a few people home, including an ex-school teacher who ended up homeless, and stayed in a women’s shelter where she saw sex trafficking, overdoses, and lots of really hard stuff.
Wilde said the Home Share Strategy launched in 2024.
There’s a four-to-eight week process to establish a good fit for host and guest.
“We first screen our guest and host applicants, we require police checks from both, we do extensive interviews with each, and we can see from that who is compatible with who.”
“When we do see a match, we have them meet in a public place just to see comfort levels, then we ask for them to have two more meetings, and if they’re comfortable with one another then we have a Home Share agreement, and it’s been looked at by lawyers. They have maintained that this isn’t a tenant-landlord situation.”
She said the host gets to decide how long the home share can last and what needs to be done around the house.
Since 2024, Safe Haven has received 43 guest applicants, but only five hosts and guests have completed the home share so far.
