Homes First Society
Organization profile published 1984

http://sites.google.com/site/homesfirstsociety2/home
Year Published:  1984
Resource Type:  Organization
Cx Number:  CX3016

Abstract: 
HOMES FIRST SOCIETY, a non-profit housing corporation, was established in 1983. Its purpose is not only the provision of housing for low income single adults, but the "establishment of homes"....A home is more than shelter. It is part of one's security, identity, privacy, hospitality. Being homeless is not only a physical deprivation. In wways that we who have homes can scarely conceive, homelessness subjects a person to experiences and problems that undermine his or her sense of worth as a human being.

The SOCIETY is committted to certain goals:
1. To make sure those who will use the housing are represented in planning for and managing it;
2. To provide a quality of management that will not just oversee a physical plant but will work with residents
to build communities of people and supportive social networks to help individuals deal with day-to-day
life problems;
3. To provide a variety in types of housing to meet the needs of a variety of persons;
4. To make sure that the housing is affordable to people living on social assistance, and affordable also to
the organization that will be providing the managment and other social services supports. Security to
tenure is a necessary requisite for long term housing; and
5. To provide maximum privacy for individuals and also maximum choice and opportunity for groups and
individuals to relate to each other.

HOMES FIRST SOCIETY has developed a model for a planning process, for a building form, and for develolping supportive social networks. The first project using this model is scheduled to open in the fall of 1984 in downtown Toronto. It has been designed to improve on the building form, management and social features of the best of the rooming houses, which prior to the redevelopment of the downtown core, had housed low income single adults.

This abstract was published in the Connexions Digest in 1984.