SUMMARY OF RESEARCH
Ready to Rent BC, the non-profit organization behind the rapidly growing RentSmart education model for successful tenancies and housing stability – is launching an online toolkit to inspire communities to begin the shift from crisis response to homelessness prevention. The Homelessness Prevention Toolkit includes effective practices that can be adapted to and complement existing community-based efforts to address housing instability and homelessness.
The toolkit highlights Canadian organizations that are successfully pioneering innovative best practices to help people break the cycle of homelessness and ensure housing stability.
Furniture Bank Toronto – Resource Bank
Also featured in the Toolkit, are podcasts sharing the stories directly from people involved in these practices. In addition, the Toolkit includes a prevention assessment tool to help organizations and communities explore their role in prevention efforts.
This episode, we sit down to talk with Dan Kershaw of Furniture Bank. Dan Kershaw is the Executive Director at Furniture Bank, one of Canada’s most rapidly growing social enterprises. Furniture Banks helps turns affordable housing into affordable homes through the diversion of gently loved furniture from landfills.
In this episode, we talk about the importance of making an affordable house a home and treating everyone with dignity and respect when they walk through the door of Furniture Bank. We also discuss the link between employment and homelessness prevention and conscious consumerism and waste diversion. Dan also describes how social enterprise has allowed Furniture Bank to grow and his vision for the future.
Furniture Bank Toronto | Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter |
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Video: Dan Pelata Ted Talk: “The Way we Think about Charity is Dead Wrong”
- Video: Every Day at Furniture Bank
- Streets to Homes Toronto
- Toronto Enterprise Fund
- United Way
- Edelman Trust Barometer
- Reducing furniture waste in Europe
- Endy
- National Housing Strategy
This podcast is supported by the Vancouver Foundation.
SOURCE:
Furniture Banks—Rent Smart Education Toolkit. (n.d.). RentSmart Education & Support. Retrieved January 10, 2020, from https://rentsmarteducation.org/furniture-banks/
