Providing ‘housing with a purpose’ is one of Community Living Quinte West’s missions.
Manager of Innovation and Collaboration for the non-profit organization Lisa Rashotte approached Quinte West Council at its meeting Monday to share two new housing initiatives they are developing.
The organization currently supports people with intellectual disabilities to live, work, and participate as integrated and valued members of the community.
The two new housing initiatives are Transitional Housing Experience (THE) and Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME).
The HOME initiative is a six-suite model that will provide different ways to support people with an intellectual disability 18 and older with emergency respite, homelessness, and people with an intellectual disability. The HOME Initiative will be wrap-around support providing people with an intellectual disability and their families reassurance that their loved one has a safe place by offering options to have social and emotional guidance, and education to help gain skills they need every day.
Rashotte explained they have reached the point where they have implemented stages to help support their growth strategy where they are hoping to impact early intervention and new service models to help close gaps in the system.
Rashotte said the organization recently launched THE to combat youth with an intellectual disability with homelessness by supporting transient or vulnerable youth with an intellectual disability that are going from children’s services to adult services.
Community Living Quinte West recently obtained a four-bedroom home in Trenton to start moving transitional age youth and adults age 17 to 30 into, with 24/7 support.
“We don’t want this to be long term, but we want it to be sustainable in the sense that people are getting what they need out of the initiatives to be independent themselves, or to be independent with some type of support,” she explained.
Additionally, Rashotte noted they’ve created Children Having Options Involving Challenging Experiences (CHOICE), a 10-week series they’ve developed in partnership with, or receiving support from, several partners in town.
This includes the Quinte West OPP who identified some topics needing to be made reachable for all students in the system. It’s aimed at helping kids from Grade 4 to Grade 12 with early education on topics like digital citizenship including internet safety, academic pressures, responsibility, age of consent, sexual exploitation, human trafficking. CHOICE will be altered based on grade and requests from various partners.
Around $1.3 million in fundraising grants have been written out, and Rashotte noted Community Living Quinte West is working in tandem with other local organizations to try and have a better opportunity to gain those grants.
She did mention the organization received $5,000 for the CHOICE program.
Quinte West Council vocalized their support for the initiatives Community Living Quinte West is doing.
