Melanie.Redman's blog

Since we launched the A Way Home Canada coalition in 2015, communities, provinces and even countries around the world have adopted the A Way Home name as a way to attach themselves to this growing international movement for change. What we seek is a fundamental shift in how we respond to youth homelessness, from a predominantly crisis response to one that focuses on prevention and sustained exits from homelessness.

In 2013, a handful of Canadian national and local partners working on housing and homelessness came together with the support of the Catherine Donnelly Foundation to launch a national pilot project called “Mobilizing Local Capacity to End Youth Homelessness (MLC).” The intent of the pilot was to support up to 10 communities, with populations of 50,000 - 200,000, to craft and implement plans to prevent and end youth homelessness.

Happy New Year! A Way Home Canada opened 2018 with an even stronger commitment to fighting for the human rights of youth experiencing homelessness.

Some might think it a bit extreme to push a shopping cart across the entire country through every kind of season and weather, but Joe Roberts believes that we have to do “whatever it takes” to prevent and end youth homelessness in Canada.

With contributions from Lesley McMillan, Program Director, A Way Home Canada

I’m excited about this week! Over the course of one week, I not only get to celebrate my birthday, but I also get to help host a group of thoughtful, passionate and determined folks that make up the National Learning Community on Youth Homelessness (LC).

I’m heading to Helsinki Monday night. Why Helsinki? Though I do enjoy the commitment to all things death metal, uncomfortable group spa trips with colleagues and the extreme cold, I’m actually heading there with Dr. Gaetz to learn from European colleagues and to contribute to a growing body of work concerning the Canadian-made Housing First for Youth model.

Having ‘come from away’ I am under no illusion that Ontario, or Toronto for that matter, is the centre of the universe. That said, I’m pretty excited about working with community and government stakeholders to ramp up our efforts to prevent and end youth homelessness in Ontario. As Dr. Gaetz always says, it’s all about readiness. 

I had the privilege of spending some time over the holidays in sunny California. It was a fantastic trip for so many reasons, but one conversation I had with a young hair stylist in San Francisco really stands out - it was about my work on youth homelessness and prevention. She asked me about the causes and conditions of youth homelessness and then looked at me thoughtfully for a minute and said, “I know this might sound naive, but I guess I just don’t understand why we wouldn’t stop young people from becoming homeless in the first place.” Exactly.

I’m a sucker for the holidays as it is: the beautiful twinkling lights, holiday carols, and even cheesy holiday rom-coms. This holiday season is even more special somehow, and reflecting on the first year of A Way Home Canada is an important part of that. What I’m most grateful for is the approach we are taking to making a real impact on the issue of youth homelessness known as Collective Impact.

On November 17^th, the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness in partnership with A Way Home Canada and with support from The Home Depot Canada Foundation will launch the results of the largest national study on youth homelessness ever conducted in Canada, Without a Home: The National Youth Homelessness Survey.