Georgian College

21 GEORGIANVIEW SPRING 2022 ChANGEMAKING "To me, homelessness is easy to be passionate about and it's very solvable, too," says alumnus Michael Braithwaite, CEO of Blue Door Support Services in York Region. "You know, we could beat this if the political will and the dollars were there." Michael, a graduate of the Fundraising and Resource Development program (class of 2013) has been CEO of Blue Door Support Services since 2019. Although he has been dedicated to ending homelessness for 30 years, it's in this role that he's actually witnessing strides toward real changes. Since Michael joined Blue Door, the non-profit switched from providing mainly emergency housing to also creating new health and employment programs, as well as York Region's first supportive housing for 2SLGBTQ+ youth – a project called INNclusion. He's especially proud of the social enterprise they created called Construct, which trains people in skilled trades so they can get into higher-paying jobs and be better able to afford housing. "Blue Door now has a source of revenue that's not tied to the government and allows us to do projects we want to do," he says. "(As a direct result of Construct's work), the individuals we train get launched into the trades where they're starting at $21-28 an hour. It's meaningful work and it's a living wage right off the bat." Michael's passion was ignited during his very first job in the sector, providing emergency housing to men through the YMCA in Hamilton. He quickly realized clients wouldn't stay housed without the proper supports in place. But the desire to create long-term solutions isn't the only thing that motivates him. "As I learned about homelessness, I realized, my older sister really had been precariously housed or homeless for most of her life, since she was 16," he shares. "This is someone who grew up with caring, involved parents and had three other siblings that this didn't happen to. So, for me, it's very personal." Homelessness is a solvable problem | Michael believes that homelessness is a solvable problem if the political will and financial support is there. Two years ago, the pandemic amplified the urgency and severity of our country's homelessness problem. The federal government piled billions into the sector to create safe housing for people. Still, the work's not done. "I think the pandemic shone a light on what homelessness really is," he says. "Will the momentum carry over? I don't know. It's up to us in the sector to make sure that we don't lose momentum once we're past the pandemic." Listen to Michael on Blue Door's podcast, On the Way Home, cohosted with the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness.

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