The Specific Challenge

1) Our organization looks to provide vulnerable clientele with the tools necessary to overcome challenges presented to them. We offer emotional support to individuals who are isolated through our active listening services, as well as housing searches and mail reception services for individuals without a fixed address.

2) We serve a vulnerable clientele who have often been thrown to the wayside and have fallen through the cracks of social service nets put in place. They often do not feel heard and therefore often do not express their needs comfortably. It would be important to have more services and directional programs put in place to help alleviate the plight of our clients.

3) There often is a misunderstanding as to why people end up without a fixed address. It is a multifaceted issue that stems from many areas, including undiagnosed or untreated mental illnesses, a past of trauma, among many other variables. This is not a conscious choice that individuals make themselves. It would be important to remove the stigma associated with these issues, as well as greater funding of appropriate and comprehensive resources/programs to fully enable individuals to reach their full potential.

4) Although there are many NGO and personally-funded organizations that are in place to address these concerns, it would be ideal to have even more to be able to address the breadth of the issue at hand.

5) Homelessness is a multifaceted issue that is a symptom of underlying issues concerning lack of funding in the mental health and social services sector. This is in conjunction with misunderstandings of why individuals end up on the streets in the first place. As opposed to addressing specific issues (i.e., access to food, gaining access to governmental services, etc), it would be important to view the issue holistically and address it from multiple avenues simultaneously as opposed to one.

6) We do try to help individuals to the best of our capabilities by giving clients tools and a foundation to start with. We try to help individuals by helping them with important primary concerns, such as finding shelter, housing, food and other resources, while trying to empathize with them and offer them the emotional support they so sorely need. Although these are good first steps, the issue at hand is convoluted and touches upon many areas. It would be ideal if we could organize our services in such a way that they would appropriately reflect these concerns.

 Location(s)

7) This is a worldwide issue, with some areas being more affected than others. Our organization specifically is located in Montréal, Québec.

8) This issue has been a longstanding one, since time immemorial certainly. It seems as though in contemporary times, social services are beginning to manifest that consider the plight of many individuals and are acting proactively subsequently. We are taking steps in the right direction, however, there is still more work to be done.

 Group(s) Affected

9) This is an issue that touches upon society’s most vulnerable. Again, these individuals do not make the conscious choice to end up on the streets. They often end up here due to a multitude of issues of varying degrees, stemming from past traumas, a neurobiological predisposition to drug abuse and addiction, not having access to appropriate social/mental health resources to address their issues, and being undiagnosed/misdiagnosed at the level of psychological disorders.

The Face à Face Listening and Intervention Centre offers active listening, intervention, and collaborative support to vulnerable and isolated individuals, on the telephone and in person, in order to encourage the process of empowerment and social reintegration

Address:1857 Maisonneuve West, suite 100Montreal, QuebecH3H 1J9Phone:(514) 934-4546Email:info@faceafacemontreal.orgFacebook:FaceAFaceMTLInstagram:@FaceAFaceMTLhttps://faceafacemontreal.org/