Social Development Centre Waterloo Region

Ride for Refuge - September 23

Sep 5 2023

Ride for Refuge 2023

We will open our doors for all the Riders on Saturday September 23rd at 10am, the ride starts at 11am! The detailed schedule is at the Kitchener Central Ride page! We will love to rest after the walks and the bike ride at our Civic Hub, have some lunch and build up our resonance around the important issues for the year ahead: "Keep Everybody Housed", stopping the flow from evictions to homelessness, and "Filling the Gap" the future of community advocacy and the Civic Hub. If you cannot invite your own team to join the fundraiser, you can always donate by joining the "Keep Everyone Housed" team at the Ride for Refugee portal. Or just come and cheer with us!

Renoviction Town Hall Panel September 21

Aug 20 2023

Michelle Knight, the Coordinator of the Eviction Prevention Waterloo Region, will be joining a mighty panel of local advocates from different fields at the Town Hall organized by Councillor Rob Deutschmann on September 21st, 2023. "Hear firsthand the daunting realities faced by many tenants in today's volatile housing landscape and engage in a meaningful discussion with our guest speakers on how to protect yourself, your home, and your rights as a renter." You can contribute to this critical conversation as you register for the town hall. The event is recorded and will be available online.

falling through the cracks - Voices of Displacement

Aug 17 2023

exhibit capture

Kitchener Public Library was a host to the exhibit "falling through the cracks" together with the Wilfrid Laurier University research team and the Social Development Centre Waterloo Region. “This project allowed members of our working group to experience research from the perspective of researchers rather than subjects being researched,” said David Alton, LEWG facilitator at the Social Development Centre Waterloo Region. “The exhibit has been a powerful tool to help working group members talk to city staff about displacement and the many layers of subjective experience attached to places and spaces.” Please see more at the Wilfred Laurier University website - full online exhibit coming soon! Thank you all for your generous donations and sending off the group to the CAEH conference of homelessness in Halifax in November 2023!

Lived Experience Displacement Exhibit August 16th

Jul 28 2023

Photo Voice Exhibit The Lived Expertise Working Group has been working with the Wilfrid Laurier University students and professors to explore the impact of ongoing displacement in the City of Kitchener. Together, they are hosting a Photo Voice Displacement Exhibit at Kitchener Central Library on Queen Street on August 16th from 5pm to 8pm. The exhibit has visual, three dimensional, and story telling components. The event is also a fundraiser for the working groups' participation at the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness 2023 Conference. You can RSVP at this link, or if you cant come, you can donate to support their trip to the conference in Halifax through the GoFundMe portal.

Apply for Peer Worker Eviction Prevention KW

Jun 23 2023

We are currently looking to hire an Eviction Prevention Peer Worker for Kitchener–Waterloo with lived experience of housing challenges and eviction. Eviction Prevention Waterloo Region is a peer-based eviction prevention program that provides holistic support to people at risk of or facing eviction, with a focus on those who are part of low-income, BIPOC, 2SLGBTQ+, persons with disabilities, and/or immigrant communities. Application deadline: July 7, 2023. Please see the full job posting and contact information.

Two Summer Positions Open for Festival of Neighbourhoods

May 26 2023

Summer Job Positions open, 8 weeks, 35 hours per week, at 15.50/hr, between June 5th – Sept. 1st Are you outgoing, diligent, wanting to learn, and like people? The Social Development Centre Waterloo Region and Festival of Neighbourhoods have openings for youth seeking experience in community organizing and social development. We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applications from all equity seeking groups. Please respond before midnight on June 2nd. See more detail in the job posting and get in touch with heather@waterlooregion.org if you have any questions.

What Moves You... to Dream?

May 25 2023

RSVP Annual General meeting Our 56th Annual General Meeting is on June 29th! Registration open already - let us know how we can make this hybrid gathering more welcoming for you. Essentials you will need: agenda for the AGM, 2022 Annual Report and Financials under review. Of course, the Board Nomination Package. Our staff team and our lived expertise associates are continuously growing in diversity and our Board is looking to diversify too. Take another look at the work we do and come together to share what moves us to... dream, listen, act, resist, build, and celebrate! Please register for the AGM at this link.

Life Made Accessible NAAW 2023

May 23 2023

2023 National AccessAbility Week (NAAW) is celebrated from May 29th to June 4. Disabilities and Human Rights (DHR) Group is launching a series of conversations entitled "Life Made Accessible: Building Stronger Communities and Workplaces Together". The Podcast Series will be the first sound bites to start the conversation on employment, education, workplace and poverty, only some of the areas in which we still need to advance inclusion, accessibility and collaboration with persons living with visible and invisible disabilities.

Listen to members of the Disabilities and Human Rigths Group speak about their experiences with accessibility, read the transcripts of the stories they share, put up the poster, and join the conversation with DHR members!

Open House May 11th

Apr 21 2023

Open House May 11 2023 Social Development Centre projects have been featured in local media recently, however, there is much more we can do to better represent our work. People who are expressing interest in joining our Board at the Annual General Meeting this June 29th are asking us good questions about the practical side and the underlying philosophy of the organization. If you are interested in hearing more about how to become a Board member or to understand what SDC stands for, be our guest! RSVP here please, and if you cannot come, let us know through the short survey if we can share more information with you in other ways.

We have a jingle invite you can also share in your networks!

Prototyping the Plan to End Chronic Homelessness

Apr 19 2023

The number of people experiencing homelessness in Waterloo Region is increasing due to the lack of political will to change our approaches to financialized housing market as well as the current approaches to residents living in shelters and those unsheltered. Homelessness is a complex problem and requires deep collective thinking about the complicency of institutions, service providers and housed people in ongoing human rights violations of the homeless residents. Region of Waterloo staff and community partners will co-create a Plan to End Chronic Homelessness (The Plan) in 2023 so we can move from the current position of blaming individuals or upholding systems of harm towards a whole community being engaged in responses rooted in human right to housing. Social Development Centre is jining the Region staff and Overlap Associates in creating this roadmap for strategies that are rooted in reality and respectful of lived experience of unhomed residents. Together with the lived experts we will set the stage for hands on collaboration with partner organizations to test some of the responses and learn from prototypes that can involve processes, structures and services informed by lived experience.