This chapter describes the collaborative planning and change process spear-headed by a group of service providers in the city of Hamilton, Ontario: the Street Youth Planning Collaborative (SYPC). The SYPC represents a grassroots-led (or ‘bottom-up’) effort to collectively identify and address the structural factors and individual circumstances influencing the experiences of street-involved youth in the City of Hamilton. In telling the SYPC’s story, I shed a light on the activities of people in Hamilton as they endeavor to create and implement a coordinated system of supports for street-involved youth. As I move through the narrative, I highlight the general implications of this case, teasing out the necessary organizational and behavioural components of a change process that supports a fundamental shift in how people work and think. The case highlights the strategic use of research by a service delivery network to generate a common understanding of a problem and then to identify, plan for and fund a multi-faceted solution. The case also demonstrates the suspension of organizational autonomy that is necessary to joint work. Hamilton’s coordinated response to youth homelessness is supported by shared staffing positions and shared funds that support interdependency and shared accountability. As a research case, the SYPC illustrates some of the strengths and limitations of a community-led or bottom-up organizational response to a complex problem like youth homelessness.
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The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness is the largest national research institute devoted to homelessness in Canada. The COH is the curator of the Homeless Hub.
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The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness is the largest national research institute devoted to homelessness in Canada. The COH is the curator of the Homeless Hub.
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- Introduction
- 1. Program and Service-level Collaboration
- 1.1 Coordinated Access and Assessment: Calgary, Alberta
- 1.2 Where’s the CASH (Centralized Access to Supported Housing)?: Evaluation of a Single Point of Access to Supported Housing
- 1.3 Cross-sector Case Management: Experience of EMRII, a Mixed Team Working with Homeless People
- 1.4 A Response to Homelessness in Pinellas County, Florida: An Examination of Pinellas Safe Harbor and the Challenges of Faith-based Service Providers in a Systems Approach
- 1.5 Vignette: The Bell Hotel Supportive Housing Project: Early Outcomes & Learnings
- 1.6 Vignette: 1011 Lansdowne: Turning Around a Building, Turning Around Lives
- 2. Systems Planning for Targeted Groups
- 2.1 Women First: An Analysis of a Trauma-informed, Women-centred, Harm Reduction Housing Model for Women with Complex Substance Use and Mental Health Issues
- 2.2 Service Coordination for Homeless Pregnant Women in Toronto
- 2.3 Communities of Practice as Locations for Facilitating Service Systems Improvement for Northern Homeless Women
- 2.4 Vignette: Northern Housing Networks: Collaborative Efforts to Develop Innovative Housing Programs for High-needs Indigenous Women in Northern, Remote Communities
- 2.5 Creating a Community Strategy to End Youth Homelessness in Edmonton
- 2.6 Coordination at the Service Delivery Level: The Development of a Continuum of Services for Street-involved Youth
- 2.7 Vignette: A Transdisciplinary Community Mental Health Program Providing Clinical Care to Street-involved Youth in Hamilton
- 2.8 Vignette: Youth Reconnect: Systems Prevention in a Crisis Model
- 3. Inter-sectoral collaborations
- 3.1 Preventing Youth Homelessness: The Need for a Coordinated Cross-sectoral Approach
- 3.2 A 10-Year Case Study Examining Successful Approaches and Challenges Addressing the Determinants of Homelessness: The Experiences of One Canadian City
- 3.3 Homeless In, Homeless Out and Homeless Zero: Using System Dynamics to Help End Homelessness
- 3.4 Building Research Capacity to Improve Services for the Homeless: An Integrated Community-academic Partnership Model
- 3.5 Collaborative Approaches to Addressing Homelessness in Canada: Value and Challenge in the Community Advisory Board Model
- 3.6 “What is Needed is the Mortar That Holds These Blocks Together”: Coordinating Local Services Through Community-based Managerialism
- 3.7 I’ll Tell You What I Want, What I Really, Really Want: Integrated Public Health Care for Homeless Individuals in Canada
- 3.8 Vignette: Addressing Homelessness Among Canadian Veterans
- 3.9 An Evaluation of the London Community Addiction Response Strategy (London CAReS): Facilitating Service Integration Through Collaborative Best Practices
- 4. High-level governance challenges and opportunities
- 4.1 Systems Planning and Governance: A Conceptual Framework
- 4.2 The Strategic Response to Homelessness in Finland: Exploring Innovation and Coordination within a National Plan to Reduce and Prevent Homelessness
- 4.3 A Critical Review of Canadian First Nations and Aboriginal Housing Policy, 1867 - Present
- 4.4 Interagency Councils on Homelessness: Case Studies from the United States and Alberta
- 4.5 System Planning: A Case Study of the Calgary Homeless Foundation’s System Planning Framework
- 4.6 The “First City to End Homelessness”: A Case Study of Medicine Hat’s Approach to System Planning in a Housing First Context
- Conclusion
- Exploring Effective Systems Responses to Homelessness
- 2. Systems Planning for Targeted Groups
- 2.6 Coordination at the Service Delivery Level: The Development of a Continuum of Services for Street-involved Youth