Eight people and their families from Windsor and Essex County joined together in collaboration with the following partners: Alliance General Contracting and Flex Custom Home Solutions (two private developers), City of Windsor, Office of Community Development and Health Services/Housing; Windsor-Essex Brokerage for Personal Supports (Brokerage); Windsor-Essex Family Network (WEFN) and Community Living Windsor (CLW), on this innovative proposal/project. A ‘project advisory group’, called the Windsor-Essex Innovative Housing Collaborative Advisory Group, was formed to advise and steer the work.
The people and families who participated had a personal vision for their individualized, innovative housing and support option – one that best met their unique strengths and challenges. Each vision for home and everyday involvement was developed over a period of time as a result of the following common themes:
- ongoing independent facilitation support;
- conversations with trusted friends and family;
- varied life experiences, roles and responsibilities supported somewhat by individualized funding;
- a local community development initiative called My Home, My Choice that involved the following active partners key to its success over the years: WEFN (the lead), Brokerage, CLW, Family Services Windsor-Essex, City of Windsor, CMHC, ACCESS (Kingsville), Inclusion Press, and PooranLaw. This initiative also involved other partners, too numerous to name. It offered regular opportunities for people and families, as follows: inspiration through real family stories and presentations; availability of timely and relevant information resources about housing options; learning events held at regular intervals; as well as partnerships and community development work with specific local, municipal, provincial and federal government organizations/agencies over six years.