Friday, May 9th, 2025
11:15am - 12:30pm
Room 613T
Concurrent Session:
How Home Happens: It is not Innovative to Want Ordinary
How Home Happens: It is not Innovative to Want Ordinary
This session by families and Durham Family Resources is about all the ways that home happens when an SRV lens guides housing expectations, choices, decisions, and creativity. Since 2018, Durham Family Resources has partnered with families to think about home, housing, and support for and with their family member with a disability. This is an opportunity to showcase not only the outcomes of such family-led thinking and action, but also to spend some time on the process and safe-guarding of this cornerstone of The Good Things of Life for all. Walking with families through a culturally valued analogue of both home and housing and looking at the creative, robust and greatly ordinary ideas that emerge from this starting point, participants will learn how these and the use of other SRV themes bring about good home and housing generated by families over time through family leadership in advocacy and success in: portable housing benefits, steering local councils away from congregated builds for marginalized people and toward mixed housing and neighbourhoods, and contributing to the regional housing conversation. All of these have arisen through a deeper application of an SRV lens in this work.
Presenters
Janet Klees​
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Janet Klees has been involved in the lives of people with disabilities, their families, and allies for 40 years. Since 2014, Janet has been the Executive Director for the Durham Association for Family Resources and Support in Ontario, Canada. Prior to this, Janet worked with the family-governed Deohaeko Support Network for over 20 years. Under her current role, Imagining Home, a family group with a focus on home and housing partners with families to successfully imagine and plan for typical, valued housing options around the Region. She is an author and continues to meet, share and learn with families with a focus on bringing about roles, relationship and places of belonging into the lives of people and communities. ​
Erin O'Reilly
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More details to come.
Carron Jensen​
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Carron Jensen is a retired high school of visual arts teacher with a deep connection to DFR. With their help, Carron and her son Caleb have been working to plan and implement a typical life for him, including his own home, community connections and meaningful employment. Carron is a family leader to the many involved with DFR through family leadership weekends, the Recognizing Capacity Project and a current board role, in addition to her personal interest in housing issues.
Diane Douglas​
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Diane Douglas worked 32 years as an emergency service dispatcher for 911 and the fire department. She has 2 sons, John and Charlie. She lives with her partner Marie and is enjoying retired life travelling, bird watching and tennis. Diane has been involved with Durham Family Resources (DFR) for two years and together with Marie, has been actively uncovering a deeper understanding of Charlie’s hopes and wishes with regards to a home of his own. This year, Charlie moved into the basement apartment of their family home and has more recently been offered an opportunity for an apartment in a local co-operative housing neighbourhood. With this comes many “firsts” for Charlie, Diane and Marie alike! Together with DFR, they are navigating this next chapter in their home and housing journey.