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.