涩里番

A Panel and Workshop

Plenary Panel

Lessons from Community: Fostering Lived Experience Leadership for Housing Justice

Alex Nelson, Keisha Muia, Mardi Daley, Pamela Spurvey, Star Gale
Moderated by: Jayne Malenfant
1:00 pm-2:30 pm

Workshop

Implementing Strategies for Meaningful Engagement of Community in Advocacy, Programs and Research

2:45 pm-5:00 pm

Alex Nelson

Alex Nelson is a PhD Candidate in Anthropology at Western University. Their research looks at gender, lived experience of homelessness, and housing policy; Alex focuses on the ways in which lived expertise and narratives of homelessness can be mobilized to enact meaningful policy change. Alex is the co-chair of the Canadian Lived Experience Leadership Network, and the Community Engagement and Research Specialist of the National Right to Housing Network. They have facilitated dozens of sessions focusing on lived expertise and narrative for conferences, organizations, and networks across Canada.

Keisha Muia

Keisha Muia is a queer, first generation immigrant, and Master of Social Work graduate from Portland, Oregon. They have been working for the past 2+ years as a research assistant on Portland鈥檚 North/Northeast Preference Policy study in addition to working for Council for the Homeless with the Director of Advocacy and Equity in Vancouver, Washington. Their goal is to create lasting, sustainable change through research and policy work. Their research is focused on disrupting the effects of gentrification and urban renewal on Black and Brown communities of color via policy and adding to the literature regarding reparative housing practices.

Keisha's work at Council for the Homeless has been focused on advocating for and incorporating individuals with lived experience of being unhoused onto the Board of Directors at the agency. They will be sharing their experiences of advocating for individuals with lived experience of being unhoused as well as their community advocacy efforts with those who have been displaced from their familial and cultural homes.

Mardi Daley

Mardi Daley is an entrepreneur, engagement advisor, facilitator and certified Peer Specialist working in youth mental health and homelessness in Toronto. Working from the lens of her own lived experience, Mardi collaborates on community-based research projects to support by-youth for-youth resources, training, inclusion and engagement. Her areas of interest include youth employment, peer support and ethical youth engagement. Since 2015, Mardi has co-authored and created many resources related to these areas and has worked with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), LOFT Community Services, Toronto Alliance to End Homelessness, Making the Shift, MLSE Launchpad and many others.

Pamela Spurvey

Pamela Spurvey presently works for Alberta Health Services as a Peer Support Worker for the Edmonton Opioid and Enhanced Addiction Clinic as a Peer Support Worker. She also works as a Recovery Life鈥檚 Skills Coach/Mentor with the Edmonton Drug Treatment Team. Pamela struggled with mental health and substance abuse for many years and has been on her wellness journey now for the past 16 years. She spent many years feeling hopeless, emotional pain and believing there was no way out. When she was feeling unwell and trying to navigate her way through recovery the right support was critical. In time, with self- help groups and guidance from counsellors and so much more, she was able to gain a sense of hope. She is now able to monitor her illness and life holistically and uses this knowledge to help others see that they too find there well to wholeness and hope. She sits on many different committees using her lived and living experience to advocate for change and bring peoples voices forward so change is possible.

Star Gale

Star Gale is the Executive Director of L鈥橝bri en Ville, a community organization in Montreal that provides supportive independent housing for people who have been diagnosed with a severe mental illness. She applies her BSW, from 涩里番鈥檚 School of Social Work, her Master of Arts in Community Development from University of Victoria鈥檚 School of Public Administration, and her lived experience of being a homeless youth, to identify and leverage platforms for communities on the fringes to inform, create, research and/or dismantle social policy and programs which affect them. Prior to community work, Star worked in television and media production, producing satirical pop culture for CityTV and Much Music.

This event is supported by a 涩里番 Third Century Fellowship