News for November, 2009

Feature: Raising the Roof and Partners to Deliver Call to Action on Youth Homelessness

National

On November 19, Raising the Roof will release to the public its research/strategy report, Youth Homelessness in Canada: The Road to Solutions. The media event will also mark the beginning of Raising the Roof’s 13th Annual National Toque Campaign.

Taking place at Dundas Square in downtown Toronto, the event will be hosted by Raising the Roof President Sean Gadon, who will be joined by two prominent corporate leaders in calling for solutions to youth homelessness:

Janice Thomson, Executive Vice President, Direct Energy, Lead and Founding Partner in Raising the Roof’s Youthworks initiative, AND Sir Richard Branson, founder, The Virgin Group, Virgin Mobile Canada, Lead Partner in this year’s Toque Campaign.

Emily a young woman from St. John’s will speak of her first-hand experience of homelessness and represent the hundreds of young people whose voices informed Raising the Roof’s ground-breaking report.

“There are solutions to youth homelessness in Canada,” says Gadon. “There is a role for everyone — the private sector, youth, all levels of government and the Canadian public —together we can find solutions.”

The event kicks off at 10 a.m. in Dundas Square on November 19 – rain or shine – with a complimentary toque given to the first 200 attendees. If you are in Toronto on that date, please come out and show your support for solutions to youth homelessness!

Community Spotlight: SEDI Helps Youth Achieve Self-Sufficiency

Three winners were announced in April for Eva’s Initiatives Award for Innovation for their outstanding work with homeless youth. In its fourth year, the Eva’s Initiatives Award for Innovation is generously sponsored by CIBC. Each winning organization, previously profiled in issues of Housing Again, received a prize of $5,000.

The final of the short-listed entries that was recognized this year is Social and Enterprise Development Innovations (SEDI).

SEDI is a national non-profit organization that uses innovative approaches to help low-income and working poor individuals and families reach self-sufficiency. Since 1986 SEDI has worked with businesses, governments and more than 800 non-profit organizations across Canada to deliver its programs.

The ultimate goal of SEDI’s youth work is to ensure there are economic self-sufficiency opportunities in every Canadian community for young people that face barriers. The SEDI youth series includes toolkits with workshops and lessons on finance management.

SEDI initiatives focus on financial literacy, asset building and entrepreneurship—the building blocks of prosperity, Barb Gosse, Director of Asset-Building Initiatives, wrote in SEDI’s application.

In the Independent Living Account (ILA) project, individuals and families living in transitional housing are provided with matched financial incentives, financial literacy training and individual support from a shelter organization. The project’s ultimate goal is to increase the self-sufficiency of those living in transitional housing so that they can move into independent living in the rental market.

This project enrolled participants living in shelters between the ages of 18 to 56. However the youth cohort, made up of individuals between the ages of 18 to 25, had the largest representation in the project at 29%, Gosse said, and currently 40% of participants are between 15 to 30 years of age.

The project attempts to build the financial and personal assets of participants and increase their financial literacy in an effort to support participants moving from transitional housing or shelters into independent living in the private rental market. The ILA project provides participants with a matched saving incentive of $3 for every $1 of personal savings deposited into an ILA savings account. Participants had the opportunity to save up to $400 in personal savings and have that matched by up to $1,200 to help them achieve a more independent, self-sufficient, lifestyle.

During this savings process, participants are required to complete a mandatory financial literacy-training course that includes modules on basic banking, budgeting, credit and debt management/repair, consumerism, and their rights and responsibilities as tenants. Once the participant has achieved their personal savings goal and completed the required training, they identify, to their case manager, which savings goal – including first and last month’s rent, apartment insurance, moving expenses, utility hook-up or a combination of those – they wanted their matched savings allocated towards.

Research results have demonstrated that the ILA model has been effective in providing shelter residents with the support they need to move to more independent living.

News Briefs: Using Theatre to Make Policy Happen

Vancouver, BC

The theatre group Headlines is offering a creative response to homelessness; using theatre as a conduit to explore solutions together. The play, ‘After Homelessness’ is a Forum Theatre play; providing a fun, dynamic, audience-interactive evening created and performed by people who have been homeless. The project includes the Community Dialogue Sessions: a series of moderated panel discussions that will get at the nuts and bolts of creating safe, affordable and supportive housing as well as a group art exhibition at Gallery Gachet for the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival. The Dialogue Sessions will generate a Community Action Report which is designed to inform policy. Headlines Theatre has written agreements from six major organizations, including the City of Vancouver, BC Housing and the Mental Health Commission of Canada, who wish to receive the report for their research.

Older Women Speak Out at Housing Forum

On October 4, the Older Women’s Network (OWN) held a Public Forum on Housing at OISE, co-presented by the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education, University of Toronto. The title of the forum was: “Options and Priorities for Affordable Housing: ‘shovel ready’ is not the whole story.” Speakers included Angela Robertson of Sistering, Heather McGregor, CEO of the YWCA, Michael Shapcott of the Wellesley Institute and Judy Rebick activist and author. Community activist Kris Purdy was the facilitator. The forum heard from many older women about the need for more decent, affordable housing and will use the feedback to develop a report which will be released in November.

UN Grants Assist Youth Projects

Washington, D.C.

UN-HABITAT has awarded grants from its new Opportunities Fund for Urban Youth-Led Development to 67 projects around the world. The projects from 33 countries were celebrated at an event in Washington at the global celebration of World Habitat Day on October 5, 2009.