FACES of Home Suite Hope2022: Staff Edition
The Faces of HSH series launched in 2020 to give the community a glimpse of the faces behind Home Suite Hope. It is a four-part series, in which you will are introduced to: the staff, the Board, participants, and mentors and community members.
In the Staff Edition, you meet the Home Suite Hope staff. Bringing in an array of personal experiences, professional knowledge, academic achievements, skills, and more, the Home Suite Hope team collectively is a group of individuals that not only complement one another, but strive towards the ultimate goal of supporting single-parent families experiencing homelessness and moving from poverty to stability.
As a community, we want you to know who you are entrusting your resources, time and financial contributions to. We may be the team on the ground, but the community and our funders make our work possible. Thank you for your continuous support and getting involved with making our community a better place.
Board of Directors Edition
In this edition, you will meet our current Home Suite Hope Board members, along with some of our volunteer Board committee members. The Board of Directors at Home Suite Hope is a volunteer panel of up to 11 members of the broader Halton community.
As with any Board in the chartable sector, our members also act as ambassadors and advocates for Home Suite Hope and are important resources for the organization in multiple ways. We at Home Suite Hope are very lucky to have an invested, genuine, and caring volunteer Board of Directors who bring a fountain of knowledge, networks and resources to the organization. Additionally, we are more than fortunate to have our Board committee volunteers without whom our organization could not thrive.
If you are interested in a Board position, or in supporting one of the Home Suite Hope committees, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at francef@homesuitehope.org.
France Fournier, HSH Board Chair
Participants Edition
In this edition, you will meet some of the current Home Suite Hope Participants. Poverty exists and has a variety of different faces, in the most inconspicuous places.
We invest nearly $50,000 per family per year on average. With these funds we address poverty by wrapping multiple services around our families to ensure that all compounding barriers related to poverty are addressed simultaneously and off-set expenses of an individual’s basic needs: shelter, food security, education/training, basic life skills, mentorship, and community networks.
This is a proven method to help single parents lead families to become less reliant on social services and more self-sufficient. But there remains a nearly $10,000 annual funding gap — for each family’s costs over the four-year program. HSH is looking to fill that 20 per cent gap through our Partners in Change campaign.
It is an uphill climb for our families. The average cost of renting a two-bedroom apartment in the Halton region is $3121.00 as of November 2023 – Oakville is the highest in Ontario! There is a lack of affordable housing in our community and it is nearly impossible to shoulder a market rate rent if your household income is below $50,000.
It is a human right to have an adequate standard of living that allows for a person’s health and well-being. And the journey out of poverty cannot be done in isolation.
Our families need organizations and individuals like you to partner to change their lives for the better. They need individuals to commit to living a life of impact to help them move from a state of homelessness to stability, from dependence to independence, from hopelessness to hopeful.
As you read through and we introduce you to some of the families we work with, we hope you consider getting involved or donating.
Krystal Valencia, HSH Director of Development
Industry Council & Mentors Edition
In this edition, you will meet some of the current Home Suite Hope mentors and Industry Council members. Mentorship and networking are one of the vital supports that contribute to the success of Home Suite Hope participants.
Each participant who enters into one of our Homeward Bound programs is directly aligned with a mentor from Sheridan College. The President and Vice Chancellor of Sheridan college, female executives, faculty and administration across programming and campuses have partnered with Home Suite Hope to help our participants navigate post-secondary school, day-to-day life, employment searches and everything in between. In addition, we have interested community members who attended our community socials where organic mentor-mentee were fostered.
The Industry Council plays a critical role in the development and success of the Homeward Bound Halton program. The Industry Council is a group of senior executives with decision-making authority from a variety of fields who meet in an effort to support the professional advancement of participants in the program. The Industry Council is made up of representatives from organizations including private sector businesses, non-profit and public sector employers, community champions with influence in the local community and representatives from employment services at the local college, municipality or community services.
A key success factor for Homeward Bound Halton participants is that the college programs available through the program are aligned to the local labour market opportunities with the organizations that sit on the Industry Council.
We have some amazing volunteers who give their time to the organization and our participants, offering them a hand and guidance on their paths to self-sufficiency. We are very pleased to highlight some of these individuals today.
With deep gratitude for all of the time that is volunteered,
Sara Cumming, HSH Executive Director