About Us

Our team is dedicated to bringing our strengths, skills, and experience to the homelessness sector to help prevent, reduce and end homelessness. We have each been personally impacted by homelessness and poverty, and we share what we have learned to make meaningful change in Ottawa. We come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences and can offer insight on a variety of subjects such as: system navigation, coordinated access, youth homelessness, Indigenous issues, substance use, the newcomer experience, family homelessness, 2SLGBTQ+ issues and others.

Work with Us

We are passionate about collaborating with others to end homelessness.

Check out our services below, and reach out to learn more about how we can work together.

Consultations

Do You Want Insight on Your Policies or Programs?

We work collaboratively with partners to ensure their policies and programs are benefiting people experiencing homelessness and poverty. Reach out and let us know what you are looking for help with and we will make a plan with you to do one-time or ongoing consultations. We can offer help with program development (new or existing), policy development, and we can give insight on how you can meaningfully engage with your clients.

To inquire about consultations, contact [email protected]

Testimonials From Our Partners:

"Working with the Expert Steering Team was tremendous. After working with them earlier this year, I plan to seek their input on all our projects. They provided advice and insight that could not have been gained elsewhere, helping us refine our plans and avoid potential roadblocks."

- Operation Come Home

“The Expert Steering Team was a key contributor to the Ottawa Food Bank’s community co-design process. The Team’s contributions were thoughtful and insightful and laid a solid foundation for our network development plan. The Expert Steering Team model provided an avenue for us to engage people with lived experience in a way that honours the invaluable expertise its members bring to the table, with the added advantage of simplifying the engagement process on our end. We look forward to working with them again as we move into the next phase of this process.”

- The Ottawa Food Bank

Facilitating Focus Groups

Are You Looking to Gather Feedback and Learn from Your Clients?

We want to help you find a way to get feedback and learn from your clients in a way that is meaningful for them and helpful for you. We are trained to facilitate engagement groups so you can get real feedback that can help inform your program or agencies next steps.

To inquire about focus group facilitation contact [email protected]

Testimonials From Our Partners:

"We worked with members of the EST to plan and facilitate lived-experience engagement sessions and they were exceptional. They worked to plan sessions that were interesting and engaging while making sure they also met our objectives. Their facilitation style was friendly, knowledgeable, and professional and I look forward to working with the EST again for future opportunities!"

- Options Bytown

Collaborating with Committees

Are You Looking for More Diverse Expertise in Your Group or Committee?

Having people with lived experience on your committees and working groups is considered best practice and a way to create more effective programs, policies and events. Our team is willing to sit on groups/committees throughout the sector to help share our skills and expertise.

To inquire further, contact [email protected]

Testimonials From Our Partners:

"Having two people with lived experience involved on the planning committee for the Ottawa Food Security Conference was tremendously valuable on many levels. It gave us new insights that allowed us to make more informed decisions that were based on collective knowledge instead of on assumptions. Including folks with lived experience has also been useful because it helped us build a culture of thinking and being open to thinking beyond our individual experiences."

- Ottawa Food Security Conference Planning Committee, Ottawa Food Bank

Research

Are You Doing Research on Homelessness or Poverty?

We believe that research can be an effective a tool for systems change. We work with researchers to develop ethical methods and design that are safe and that will benefit the people impacted by the research.

Our team has experience in:

developing research methods
creating surveys and questionnaires
facilitating focus groups
conducting interviews
analyzing data
journal and report writing

To inquire about partnering on research, contact [email protected]

Testimonials From Our Partners:

"We collaborated with the EST to help design our survey, interview, and focus group questions to ensure that we were as inclusive as possible and not using any stigmatizing language or methods. The EST provided feedback on our outreach strategy and the process for us to provide honorariums to participants. Collaborating with the EST in our research design helped us mitigate harms that we may have inadvertently caused when researching a marginalized and highly stigmatized population.

In addition to project design, members of the EST were also involved in our data dissemination activities: they helped us write and design public reports, and they are co-authoring journal publications with our team. The ongoing feedback we receive from the EST helps us include principles of trauma-informed research at all steps of the research process."

- Diana McGlinchey, Algonquin College

Presentations

Are You Looking for Someone to Speak About Homelessness?

We believe in educating people about homelessness so they can better understand the it's causes and impacts, and how we can end homelessness. We've spoken with high school classes, University classes and others, and would be happy to hear from you if you are looking for someone to come speak with your group.

To inquire further, contact [email protected]

Testimonials From Our Partners:

“We are immensely thankful to have folks from the Expert Steering Team come to our sociology class at Carleton University. The experience of meeting and directly hearing from folks with lived experience was thoroughly eye-opening for students and enhanced their learning gravely. The presenters’ engaged and well-organized talk allowed us to discuss housing precarity not as an abstract issue, but a lived reality while reviving the hope that things can be changed.”

- Azar Masoumi, Carleton University

Our Values

Equity

We believe that to end homelessness, people with lived/living experience of homelessness, including First Nation, Métis and Inuit people, Black people, people of colour, disabled people, 2SLGBTQ+ people, refugees and newcomers, must be engaged meaningfully. This means equal opportunity for participation, decision making, and leadership, as well as gender inclusion at all levels. People must be respected, listened to, and paid for their expertise.

Collaboration

We are committed to applying our expertise and lived experiences in meaningful ways when working with partners so that the voices of people currently experiencing homelessness are prioritized in the sector.

System-Level Impact

We take a holistic approach in addressing homelessness, which focuses on system coordination, identifying barriers and gaps, and prevention. We work to create more equitable, impactful, and inclusive solutions, where all people are treated with dignity and respect.

Our Writing & Advocacy

A Chance #StartsWithHome

October 12th 2022

BLOG POST

"Housing is not a privilege to be earned, but rather a core building block of overall stability. Below standard housing, housing contingent on behaviour metrics, and shuffling humans through labyrinths of service referrals all aggravate the overdose epidemic. Put simply, we haven’t given our neighbours a chance."

Reconciliation #StartsWithHome

September 27th 20222

BLOG POST

"The marginalization and over-representation of Indigenous people in homelessness today is connected to the history of displacement, oppression and abuse experienced by generations of Indigenous people (which still occurs today)."

PRIDE #StartsWithHome

August 26th 2022

BLOG POST

"Pride has never been a single battle. The bricks thrown at Stonewall created a ripple effect of change that persists, and grows, and marches on year by year. But in many ways, complacency is among our greatest enemies. With the slow march of progress we’ve seen over the last decades, we may not see the challenges that continue to lead our young people to such a drastic over-representation in street-involved populations."

RE: 'Out of control' — Hintonburg beset with sudden homeless crowd

May 26th 2022

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

"As a team of people with lived experience of homelessness (myself a Hintonburg resident), my colleagues and I want neighbourhoods to be welcoming and safe for all. The article cites a resident as saying “that bunch has to go”. Our hope is that the “not in my backyard” rhetoric will be the first to go."

Ottawa Needs an Inclusive Neighbour-Friendly Approach to Homelessness

October 7th 2021

OP-ED (Ottawa Citizen)

"Did you know that children and youth account for 20 per cent of people across the country who have nowhere to call home? Or that, despite only being 2.5 per cent of Ottawa’s population, an estimate of 30-to-40 per cent of people experiencing homelessness in the city are Indigenous? Over-representation of populations in homelessness is not indicative of an individual’s failure; it’s indicative of the system’s failure — the failures of our governments, our policies and our communities."

Connect with us

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343-552-0202

Address: PO Box 22021, Ottawa, ON K1V 0W2

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