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)), consists 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.

Read What Is Housing First? to learn more. 

Values 

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

Goals

The goals of this CoI are to:

Steering Committee members

Co-chairs

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

Knowledge Broker

NameOrganizationEmail
Rossana Coriandoli

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

Rossana.Coriandoli@camh.ca

Members

NameOrganization/title

Andrea VanWiechen

CMHA Prince Edward Island

Don Robinson

Indigenous consultant, Winnipeg, Manitoba

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