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Jay Straus

What We Have Learned About Housing at UA

Jay Straus June 27, 2022

Since October of 2020, the dormitory at 139 University Ave W in Waterloo, commonly known as UA, has been turned into “interim” or “transitional” housing.  

When first looking at this idea, which we believe to be a unique enterprise, focus was on the labels of interim or transitional. The housing side was through the lens of a roof and a door, the physical aspects. What we have learned since we started is that the emphasis needs to be on the word housing. Housing, not of the physical space, but more in line with what we would think of as Home.

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The Many Jobs of Job Café

Jay Straus December 1, 2017

Job Café works with people who are outside the traditional labour force. The challenge is to identify jobs that need to be completed while finding the right people with the skills to do the work. This work is about recognizing the barriers that leave people out. Our work is about making it possible to overcome these barriers or at least to push them aside a bit to allow for an opening. It is these openings where we have found opportunities for Job Café workers.

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The Integrated Circle of Care is a fluid and collaborative approach followed by workers from different agencies weaving through St. John’s Kitchen. Within this approach, staff members from each agency are aware of their specific personal roles. However, the high level of collaboration between workers means that people can approach any worker, without knowing their agency association or specific role, and still receive support – either that worker will support the person directly, or they will introduce the person to another worker who can support the person more appropriately.

This approach makes relationships more natural and support more accessible. Workers from different agencies are easily approachable, meaning that people build relationships with multiple workers. Having relationships with different workers is important to a person’s support – it makes support from a trusted source easy to find, and means that people have a choice of worker to approach in any given situation.

In order to maintain a circle of care around a person, workers from different agencies ask for consent from the person for information to be shared between workers. Continuous communication between workers helps to ensure that people do not fall into gaps between services, and also that services are not duplicated.

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