Melanie Lusted

Mel is the Lead Research Assistant on the Toronto site’s Housing First for Youth (HF4Y) project with Making the Shift: Youth Homelessness Demonstration Lab (MtS DEMS). She’s honoured to fill this role and appreciates learning from the team and participants. She holds a BA (Hons.) in Gender and Women’s Studies and in Sociology with a specialization in Criminology and Socio-Legal Studies. Prior to this role with MtS DEMS, Mel worked as an RA, Student Researcher, and Social Service Worker (SSW) in the connected areas of housing security, poverty, the criminal legal system, and gendered violence. She’s lived through youth homelessness and related experiences of trauma and criminalization and is committed to community-based research and blurring the lines between knowledge gained through lived experience with that gained from academia and formal front-line work. In her spare time, Mel can be found writing out her thoughts, spending time with her kids, and enjoying nearby trails.