Governance & Engagement

Governance and Engagement - Committees, Leadership, and Working Groups

INDENTURED

Indigenous Advisory Committee – The Indigenous Advisory Council (IAC) is responsible for providing knowledge, cultural perspectives, and awareness of the urban Aboriginal experience to the advisory process. The focus of the IAC is to encourage innovative solutions that promote building organizational capacity within Indigenous organizations, groups, and communities. The IAC reviews all funding applications, providing feedback and recommendations with regard to cultural appropriateness of delivery models and assurance of quality services for Indigenous people receiving housing and support services.

Project Review Committee – The Project Review Committee is comprised of representatives from all orders of government, business and social enterprise, and the community at large. It reviews and provides feedback and recommendations on funding requests put forward to Homeward Trust administration.

The technical expertise of individual members of the Project Review Committee ensures that proposed projects are viable and align with priorities and strategies of various public and community-based stakeholders.

Community Plan Leadership Committee – We are currently in the process of revising this committee for 2024.

OPERATIONAL

Lived Experience Committees:

Participant Advisory Council – The Participant Advisory Committee was formed in 2015 and is made up of people with direct experience of programs and services. Their insights help shape program and policy development, guide strategic planning, and facilitate community education and awareness in our efforts to end homelessness in Edmonton.

Youth Advisory Group – The group responds to the need for partnered action to end homelessness, mobilizing diverse youth voices and lived expertise to support the plans to end homelessness in Edmonton. Committee members identify barriers and opportunities for improving programs and services and identify emerging trends and issues to inform and refine youth-related priorities and plans. They also focus efforts on youth-led projects that advance the goal of ending homelessness.

SYSTEM

Homeward Trust actively engages in numerous working and leadership groups within the homeless-serving system and sector to advance our collective efforts to prevent and end homelessness. This includes (but is not limited to) working with all orders of government, agencies, Edmonton Police Services, Alberta Health Services and various system and sector agents on:

Housing Solutions
Outreach, Diversion and Prevention
Programs and Services
Sector Emergency Response
Shelters
Encampments

Housing First Advisory Council – 12 Agency Executives, Team Lead Committee, Coordinated Access, Operational Oversight

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LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We recognize we are gathered, in collaboration and with joint purpose, on Treaty 6 territory. This territory is the home and gathering place for diverse Indigenous peoples. The Cree, Blackfoot, Dene, Iroquois, Anishinaabe/Saulteaux /Ojibwa, Nakota Sioux, Inuit, and Métis, among many others. We know the importance of the Treaty and our responsibility to these communities and that only in partnership can we create the social change necessary to end homelessness. It is vital we meaningfully engage and partner with Indigenous people and communities in this work while recognizing and addressing the conditions brought forth by colonialism. Displacement from traditional homelands, systemic racism, residential schools, the Sixties Scoop, and the ongoing overrepresentation of Indigenous people in child welfare, correctional systems, and homelessness are responsibilities we all share. We acknowledge ourselves as visitors living and working in this Territory.