Hockey Helps the Homeless: Leveraging Hockey to End Homelessness in Canada

Hockey Helps the Homeless: Leveraging Hockey to End Homelessness in Canada

Since its inception, HHTH has raised over $24 million to end homelessness in Canada.

Hockey Helps the Homeless (HHTH) is a charitable organization that combines the love of hockey with a commitment to addressing homelessness and poverty in Canada. While the primary focus of HHTH is to raise funds and awareness around the alarming rate of homelessness, the organization has also found a unique way to help the unbanked population in Canada.

Hockey Helps the Homeless recognizes that many homeless and marginalized individuals are part of this group. They also recognize there’s more than one story when it comes to how people end up homeless, and that’s why there is more than one way to help.

The organization invests in solutions that ensure fewer individuals and families end up on the streets and does this through partnerships with organizations that are committed to ending Homelessness through long-term housing solutions, education, training and employment, youth support services, and more.

Addressing Homelessness and Providing Pathways to Stability

On a given night, there are more than 30,000 men, women, and children on the streets, with the fastest-growing population of homeless between ages 16-24.

Long-term housing solutions, education, training, employment, and youth support services can play a vital role in helping this group by addressing the underlying factors contributing to their financial exclusion.

Long-Term Housing Solutions:

Stable housing solutions, like affordable or transitional housing programs, offer the homeless a vital foundation for financial inclusion by providing them with a stable address, a common requirement for opening a bank account. These programs also extend assistance in obtaining the essential identification documents necessary for banking access, acknowledging the challenges faced by homeless individuals.

Stable housing plays a crucial role in enhancing financial stability, reducing financial insecurity, and decreasing dependence on cash transactions.

Education, Training, and Employment:

Educational programs focused on financial literacy can equip individuals with indispensable skills, like budgeting, saving, and comprehension of financial products, which are required for navigating the banking system successfully.

Simultaneously, training and employment opportunities offer a significant pathway to consistent income generation, a commonly required condition for bank account access. Complementing this, job placement services play a significant role in providing unbanked individuals with the financial stability essentials for maintaining a bank account, ultimately working to promote their financial inclusion.

Youth Support Services:

Youth support services encompass promoting financial well-being among young individuals at risk. Through financial education initiatives, these programs impart critical knowledge on banking and financial management, serving as a proactive measure to deter future financial exclusion.

Additionally, mentorship and guidance within youth support services ensure that young people receive valuable insights and avoid common financial pitfalls that may lead to exclusion. These services often include scholarship and education grants, which offer financial support to enable young individuals to pursue education and training, ultimately bolstering their future earning potential and overall financial stability.

Leveraging Canada’s Affinity for Hockey

Working to improve the overall quality of life for marginalized individuals, Hockey Helps the Homeless has effectively leveraged Canada’s love for hockey. To give all homeless Canadians a fighting chance, since 1996, the organization has hosted Pro-Am Hockey Tournaments across Canada annually, where players raise funds to make a direct impact in their own community. 100% of net proceeds stay local to reach the ultimate goal of ending homelessness.

“Each year, Canada sees 235,000+ Canadians living on the streets with a critical number unaccounted for – the hidden homeless. Those who work with people facing homelessness are carrying growing emotional burdens as demand grows. Hockey Helps the Homeless provides a program that mobilizes people and raises awareness of homelessness across, and every dollar invested in Hockey Helps the Homeless equates to $4 to beneficiary partners across Canada.”