Collaboration
The Coming Together project helped to create a collaborative to build on the work of several community-based, participatory action and/or arts-informed research projects with people who have experiences with homeless in Toronto.
Since October 2007, we have met and committed ourselves to partnership and collaboration for social action and social justice for people experiencing homelessness in Toronto. This collaborative reflects our collective ability to highlight the diversity of people that experience homelessness in Toronto and the validity of community-based participatory (CBR/CBPR) research and arts-informed research. We are using our research projects to mobilize and disseminate knowledge from eight community-based participatory research studies in Toronto, of which 6 are arts-informed.
Our collaboration is innovative and unique in that the involved projects recognize people with experiences of homelessness as the ‘experts’ of their own experiences, whose insights can inform real-world solutions to the lived experiences of homelessness. The participation of community members and the peer researchers was critical to the success of all projects and some of these peer researchers have continued to actively participate in the Collaborative, undertaking various roles related to the decision-making and implementation of multiple aspects of the collaboration.
Our collaborative partners include:
- Peer researchers with lived experience of homelessness
- University of Toronto, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work
- Ryerson University, School of Social Work
- York University, Critical Disability Studies
- Regent Park Community Health Centre
- The Wellesley Institute
- Street Health
- Ontario Women’s Health Network
- St. Michael’s Hospital
- National Film Board Filmmaker in Residence Program at St. Michael Hospital
We launched our Collaborative Arts Exhibit and a Policy Recommendations Report on October 1, 2008 at Metro Hall in Toronto, Ontario. Read our report:
Homelessness – Diverse Experiences, Common Experiences, Shared Solutions: The Need for Inclusion and Accountability