Housing first community of interest

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Congratulations to the "CMHA Ottawa Condominium Program Study and Toolkit: Building Success in Housing First Treatment" on being awarded the 2022 Paula Goering Award Collaborative Research and Knowledge Translation Award. Read more about the award and its winners.


Housing First (HF) is an evidence-based program that has been shown to promote housing stability, quality of life, and community functioning for chronically homeless persons with mental illness and addictions in a large-scale, multi-site trial in Canada, At Home / Chez Soi, as well as several previous studies conducted in the U.S. (Aubry, Nelson, & Tsemberis, 2015).

The Canadian Housing First l Network – Community of Interest (CHFN-COI) assists communities across Canada to develop, evaluate, and improve Housing First (HF) programs based on the Pathways model tested, adapted, and shown to be effective in the At Home  / Chez Soi Demonstration Project.

The CHFN-CoI (formerly the Ontario Housing First Regional Network Community of Interest (OHFRN-CoI)), consist of HF champions, HF programs across Canada, policy-makers planners, managers, service-providers, researchers, and persons with lived experience, including representatives from the housing, health, and justice sectors and Indigenous housing and support providers.

The CHFN is hosted by the CAEH and Evidence Exchange Network (EENet) at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Values 

The CHEN-COI will be guided by the key values of social justice and equity, inclusion of lived experience and peer support, reconciliation, and empowerment and consumer choice  

Goals

The goals of this CoI are to:

Steering Committee members

Co-chairs

NameOrganizationEmail
Tim AubryUniversity of Ottawa, OntarioTAubry@uottawa.ca
Geoff NelsonWilfrid Laurier University, OntarioGNelson@wlu.ca  

Knowledge Broker

NameOrganizationEmail
Rossana Coriandoli

Centre for Mental Health and Addiction (CAMH), Toronto, Ontario

Rossana.Coriandoli@camh.ca

Members

NameOrganization/title
Michelle BilekCanadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH), Ontario
Greg BishopSaint John Human Development Council, New Brunswick
Wally CzechCAEH, Alberta
Kathryn GibbHome for Good Peel, Ontario
Kendra GilesPhoenix Residential Society, Saskatchewan
Pio GiralicoCanadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Toronto, Ontario
Kelly GozCity of Windsor, Ontario
Jenissa GrantPerson with lived experience, Ontario
Taylor JordanOntario Native Women’s Association
Eric LatimerDouglas Research Centre and McGill University, Quebec
Simone LillyEnd Homelessness St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador
Eric MacnaughtonUniversity of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver
Laura McKinnonCMHA Prince Edward Island
Lisa MeddCMHA Ottawa, Ontario
Jason MedfordJustice-related Housing First program, Toronto, Ontario
Tim RichterCAEH, Alberta
Don RobinsonIndigenous consultant, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Ty SilverNorth End Community Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Andrea VanWiechenCMHA Prince Edward Island