The Facilitative Approach

Facilitative management is based on the premise that cooperative type housing will provide tenants with the social support structures they need while increasing their development and interpersonal skills. Each house is provided with a staff worker to assist the tenants in the many aspects of managing their houses.

The following are the characteristics of CRC Self Help’s facilitative management style:

• Progression to Self-Management
  The degree of involvement of housing workers with the residents of the houses diminishes over time as the residents become more cohesive and more able to assume and share house management responsibilities. Worker activity in established houses increases when there is a change in tenancy and a need to bring a new resident into the existing resident family.
• Facilitative Housing Worker Availability
  Facilitative Housing staff generally work from Monday to Friday 9 am to 5 pm. We have an after hours emergency response service to provide support for building emergencies.
• Alternate Families
  CRC Self Help’s housing, at this point, primarily serves single adults. CRC Self Help strives to foster community among the residents to generate what are referred to as "alternate families" in which there is a caring among family members. This mutual caring is at the core of CRC Self Help’s self-help model.
• Resident Decision Making
  All residents have an equal say in the operation of the house; identifying duties, allocation of chores, admitting new residents, taking part in the evicting of ill-suited residents, outline maintenance schedules particularly regarding cleaning and general house and yard care, developing behaviour guidelines and resolving other practical operations and interpersonal issues.
• Resident Responsibilities
  Residents, individually, are responsible for their rent, cooking their own meals and cleaning their own rooms. Residents, as a group, are responsible for maintaining common areas, resolving disputes within the group and making decisions as described in the previous paragraph.
• Masters in their Own Homes
  The final goal is to create a sense of ownership and responsibility for the house among all the residents. This is essential for self-management to become a reality. CRC Self Help assumes that people want to be master in their own homes. With the staff input and support, residents are able to determine their needs at the various stages on the way to full self-management.

As stated previously, the guiding assumption of CRC Self Help's model is that long term affordable housing provides stability in people's lives. In summary, the staff works with the residents to develop community within each house and to ensure that a collective sense of responsibility, both for the house and the neighbourhood, emerges as a product of the facilitation process.

In addition, the model recognizes that individuals in the group will experience personal life changes and will work on individual life goals within the context of the stabilized housing and the community life style. The staff encourages individuals to share their skills and experiences with the other residents. Staff also links residents with appropriate services such as; health services, job counselling, and recreation and education resources. Residents, in turn, bring street knowledge that can benefit other residents as well as the housing worker.