#WeAreWesley Lisa

Lisa is Helping to Prevent Homelessness in Halton: 

Meet Wesley’s Manager of Wesley’s Community Housing Support Program in Halton – Lisa!  She and her team work with community housing providers to support tenants and property managers in situations where eviction is occurring or may occur soon.

Lisa has always wanted to help others – even before her time at Wesley. She’s been involved with the Special Olympics and the Law Enforcement Torch Run. She has worked in accounting, sales, and customer service. Then, corporate downsizing happened. “What do I want to do when I grow up,” she asked herself.

That meant going back to school. She studied social services at Fanshawe College, where she was introduced to the subjects of housing, mental health, and the vulnerable population.

Since then, Lisa has spent 15 years supporting people in Halton who are experiencing mental health/addiction and housing instability. She worked at a Halton-based community agency as a support coordinator. She supported people with severe mental health concerns and provided them with access to services. As she grew, so did her skills and empathy.

When she joined Wesley two years ago as a Community Housing Support worker, she saw an influx of property managers and tenants struggling with accumulation-related issues and very few resources. She provided her expertise and advocacy as Wesley partnered with the Region of Halton for funding support. They launched the Community Housing Support program in October 2023.

With the program, Lisa and her team support tenants whose hoarding behaviours.  Accumulation of items or hoarding can make for very dangerous living situations and eviction can occur if the person cannot remedy the situation enough to comply with fire codes. Wesley has a wellness specialist who can help people through a 16-week cognitive behavioural therapy program, which has been shown to improve symptoms of hoarding and help prevent eviction from happening.

Lisa and her team work with property managers to recognize the signs of hoarding. They intervene before eviction becomes a concern. Early intervention is a very important part of the program.

Lisa is passionate about educating people and helping to reduce the stigma surrounding hoarding. She points out how hoarding situations are not always unsanitary and how it’s a mental health condition recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. Using words like “congestion” and “accumulation” can be much less painful and stigmatizing, according to her.

Lisa’s hope for the program is that with more awareness, hoarding will be seen as the mental health condition it is. She hopes people with symptoms will receive more support. She would love to see this program serve as a model for other regions on how to support people and prevent homelessness successfully.  And she wants to help create a better environment for people to live healthy, fulfilling lives. Lisa’s work reflects Wesley’s core values of compassion and empowerment. She sees her core values lining up with Wesley’s.

When she works alongside her team, she sees how much they care and how each and every one of them is passionate about helping others. The greatest part of her job is working with people and empowering them to realize their own potential. “It isn’t the work that I do,” Lisa said. Rather, it is the worth that people invest in themselves.”