MEDICINE HAT, Alberta — Kurt Remple, a toothless, unemployed, struggling alcoholic in Medicine Hat, the curiously named prairie town in Alberta, is a success story of sorts. Five years ago, he was living under a bridge and surviving on free meals from charities.

Today, he lives in a small but tidy one-bedroom apartment in a stucco bungalow.

“It was November and it was getting cold when I met this worker at the Champion Center,” he said, referring to a local establishment that serves breakfast to the poor. “She said, ‘Come to my office and we’ll see if you can find a place.’ ”

Medicine Hat is on the leading edge of a countrywide effort to end homelessness through the “housing first” strategy, developed nearly 25 years ago by a Canadian in New York by which anyone identified as homeless is offered a home without preconditions for sobriety and other self-improvement that keep many people on the street elsewhere.

Alcoholic? Here’s a one-bedroom apartment where you can live — even if you’re still drinking. Drug addict? Here’s a studio with heat and hot water — even if you’re still getting high. Mentally ill? Here’s a place to feel safe and call your own — and where caseworkers can find you.