Journeys to Home
A qualitative research and first person story-telling project funded by the Community Housing Transformation Centre’s Community Based Tenant Initiative Fund.
Journeys to Home supports elevating the voices of tenants and residents who have lived and living experience of homelessness, including transitional spaces such as hotel shelters, longer term supportive housing, and private rental units.
Key contributors
We are the Journeys to Home Project Team. We spent the past 18 months getting to know people across the GTA living in precarious housing, to learn from their experience about what makes a house a home and how relationships to people, places, and things impact their ability to maintain a sense of belonging.
Journeys to Home is in collaboration with key housing providers and community supports, community advocates and researchers, and designers.
Partnerships
We believe in working closely with people in the community, and co-creative work requires strong relationships and trust. To that end, we partnered with three local housing providers and their residents along the spectrum of housing, community support services and social designers.
Housing Providers
Working with community partners like: WoodGreen community Housing, Homes First Society, and Fred Victor to meet tenants and residents across a variety of housing experiences
Community Services
We also worked with two Community Agency Partners who provided us with valuable insight and access:
Agincourt Community Services association
Weston King Neighbourhood House
We partnered with two social design agencies to create, develop and implement the Journeys to Home Project, supporting the design of tangible outputs for organizational change.
Social Designers
Our Team
Alex Zsager
Homelessness Advisor and Community Researcher
Melody Li
Executive Director,
Homeless Connect Toronto
Georgia Mackenzie-MacPherson
Project Lead - Design research, strategy, production
MAC / MAC Design & Strategy
Sam McGarva
Design Researcher,
MAC / MAC Design & Strategy
Daysha Loppie
Student Design Researcher and Editor,
Homeless Connect Toronto
David Evershed
Writer and Contributor,
Homeless Connect Toronto
Our Funder
The Journeys to Home Project by Homeless Connect Toronto has been funded by The Community Housing Transformation Centre through their Community-Based Tenant Initiative (CBTI).
The Centre is a pan-Canada non-profit organization that works with housing organizations across the country to drive transformation, sustainability, and growth in community housing. The CBTI Fund supports the engagement of tenants to “develop and advocate for better community housing, participate in governance, and develop housing programs and inform new policies that take residents’ needs, hopes, and rights into consideration.”
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