Homelessness2home

Homeless2home: A Community Exchange

Homeless2home emerged from our previous work in older homelessness and extended the depth of participation of older adults in project activities. The community exchange was essentially a knowledge transfer initiative where the “expertise” flowed from the homeless community to researchers, policy makers and service providers. This project was funded by the Homelessness Partnering Secretariat HRSDC and run through the National Initiative for the Care of the Elderly. The exchange was designed and delivered by a team of formerly homeless youth, middle aged and older adults who worked over nine months to ensure the exchange was inclusive and effective. The focus was on breaking the cycle of homelessness by identifying supports that keep people housed and support people in being at home in their housing and communities, as well as documenting how the experience of homelessness and being housed plays out across life course.

A community action guide was created by and for the homeless community to extend the scope of the project’s knowledge transfer. The h2h community action guide offers a rare opportunity for people with lived expertise to author their own stories and solutions. Also, the guide provides robust evidence of the capacity of people with lived expertise to set the agenda and develop comprehensive, clear recommendations for action. More than 2000 hard copies of the guide were circulated, soft copies were posted on relevant websites and list serves.

A second community forum formally launched the guide and included an interactive community dialogue with policy makers (MPPs, City Councillors, Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing staff, Advocacy Group leaders etc.)to generate strategies to scale up portable housing benefits and to ensure the meaningful, sustained inclusion of the people with lived expertise in policy, research, program development and delivery.
H2H guide
H2H final report

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