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Learn More about Including People with Lived Experience in Homelessness

BY JUDITH TACKETT

In this issue, I would like to outline some thoughts and observations about how we truly integrate the voices of people with lived experience. My intent is to generate some ideas and hopefully encourage all of us to take active steps toward moving away from tokenism. Having said that, I hope we also start to recognize how many people we work with on a daily basis actually have lived experience, and how we can integrate their knowledge in our approaches.

First off, there are two terms that I want to distinguish between: people with lived experience and people with lived expertise. Those are distinct descriptors, and after asking people who have experienced homelessness if they prefer that I use the term “lived expertise,” I got mixed responses. Some don’t care either way. Others feel strongly that an experience is something that happened to them while an expertise is something they acquired and worked toward. A person can have both, lived experience of homelessness as well as have become an expert in homelessness.

Therefore, I choose to stick with the term lived experience in this column out of respect to the people who felt they did not seek out to be experts in homelessness by losing their housing. But I’d like to recognize that people with lived experience also have expertise. It is up to them, though, to decide how they would like to present their expertise (whether it be in homelessness and/or any other areas of expertise).

I also recognize that a topic like this may induce certain feelings in some readers. Over the years, I have observed how uncomfortable the provider community has become when it comes to referring to people for whom they provide services and support. Terminology has changed. Some providers are more comfortable with the term consumers rather than clients. Others use guests, friends, or neighbors, and so on. I want to acknowledge that being uncomfortable is not a bad place to be. When we are uncomfortable, we are generally more sensitive, which is a step in the right direction.

Yet, I think it’s important that we talk about the fact that for decades we did not recognize or acknowledge the power structure we created in the nonprofit sector between people who needed help and those of us who were in the decision-making seats who decided how the limited resources in our communities are divided up. And if we recognized it, we felt we were the experts who had done our research and we knew best.

In the past decade, the tide has been changing, and we realize that what works for us, may not always work for the people we are attempting to serve.

Recently, I found a document, which inspired this column, that I wanted to bring to your attention. It is called “Nothing About Us Without Us: Seven Principles for Leadership & Inclusion of People with Lived Experience of Homelessness.” It was published in 2016 by the Lived Experience Advisory Council, a resource hub curated by the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, a national research institute devoted to homelessness in Canada.

Here are the seven principles for leadership and inclusion of people with lived experience of homelessness, per that document:

1. Bring the perspective of our lived experience to the forefront.

HOW TO DO IT:

• Join us in creating awareness of the issues.

• Help us make sure that no one is left out or misrepresented.

• Ensure that your organization’s communications, fundraising, research, and programs do not reinforce the misconceptions that homelessness is caused by individual problems, or can be solved by charity.

• Use professional influence to help advance the goals identified by first voice people.

• Dedicate time and resources to advocacy, and support grassroots social change efforts.

2. Include people with lived experience at all levels of the organization.

HOW TO DO IT:

• Hire us in positions at all levels – frontline, administration, and management.

• Invite us to join the organization’s Board and committees.

• Include lived experience of homelessness as a dimension in your organization’s equity and diversity policies.

• Create a liaison within municipal and provincial governments, including city councils and police boards.

• Work towards sustainability and advancement for “peer” positions, so that those hired on as “peer counsellors,” “peer researchers,” etc., can advance to permanent positions.

3. Value our time and provide appropriate supports.

HOW TO DO IT:

• Anticipate the compensation and supports that will be required to properly include people with lived experience, and include those costs in funding applications.

• Compensate us well for the time spent in consultation, not only with token gift cards or minimal honorariums.

• Remember that these issues have a huge impact for us, because we can relate to the experience. Create a welcoming environment in which it is safe to express emotions.

• Develop new ways of doing businesslong meetings and bureaucratic procedures can be very draining and alienating, not only for people with lived experience!

• Provide training and capacity-building to all members of the organization, including those with and without direct experience of homelessness.

• Ensure that the timeframe for an initiative includes the time required to form a good working relationship and do things at a reasonable pace.

4. Challenge stigma, confront oppression and promote dignity.

HOW TO DO IT:

• Give us a common ground to work from by providing Anti-Oppression 101 training to all members of the organization, from participants to volunteers to frontline staff and management.

• Confront oppression through the use of anti oppression models, which are inclusive.

• Educate around intersectionality – that is, the ways that oppressions such as racism, sexism, classism and ableism work together and reinforce each other.

• Review organizational policies and practices to ensure they promote equity, dignity, and rights of people facing homelessness.

5. Recognize our expertise and engage us in decision-making.

HOW TO DO IT:

• Mandate people with lived experience into more decision-making roles in organizations dealing with issues of homelessness and marginalization.

• People with lived experience can put pressure on decision-makers to include us in influential roles by speaking when we can, by using social media, and all other methods at our disposal.

6. Work together towards our equitable representation.

HOW TO DO IT:

• Include equitable representation as a goal in the organization’s strategic planning process.

• Set concrete objectives and specific timeframes, and work towards them.

• Identify other organizations that have successfully implemented equitable representation, and get their advice and mentorship.

• Evaluate the organization’s progress, seeking input from people with lived experience in the process.

7. Build authentic relationships between people with and without lived experience.

HOW TO DO IT:

• Cultivate an environment of caring, acceptance and openness where differences are celebrated and everyone’s contribution is acknowledged.

• Ensure that all members of the organization are included in social activities, and that those activities are accessible to all.

• Break down rigid roles such as “service provider” and “service user.”

• Celebrate together.

I encourage you to read the entire document on the Homeless Hub* online at https://www. homelesshub.ca/NothingAboutUsWithoutUs.

As we keep reminding each other how important it is to integrate the voices of people with lived experience, we also need to be careful that we do not try to expose and unintentionally even exploit people with lived experience.

What I mean by that is that it is OK to speak up and point out when people with lived experience are missing in a conversation. It also must be said that a person should never be forced to identify themselves as having experienced homelessness when they are participating in a discussion, and the decision to reveal that information should always be up to the individual. Respect how we all want to introduce ourselves and leave it up to each individual whether they want to share that they have experienced homelessness.

It is a fine line to ensure that we provide the support and respect to people who have been marginalized and stigmatized — often for years. We will make mistakes. But we also will learn. And in the end, that’s what it’s all about. Positive change happens when we grow together.