About OBM - Project Team - Publications
The McGill-Old Brewery Mission (OBM) collaborative partnership is a 5-year project designed to generate knowledge that will improve the services offered to homeless men served by the OBM. The primary focus of this study will be two transitional housing programs: Étape and Escale. This project consists of 2 phases.
The purpose of the first phase is to build knowledge and organizational capacity for data collection and systematic inquiry. Phase 1 entails developing an understanding of the transition services (i.e., Étape and Escale) and the client trajectories through the Old Brewery Mission. Phase 1 is designed as an exploratory study collecting both qualitative and quantitative data.
Upon the completion of the first phase, the second phase will begin with the design and implementation of the transition services program evaluation. More specifically, it will explore the impact of the Étape and Escale programs on the reintegration to housing process of the Old Brewery Mission service users. In order to accomplish this, participants will be tracked during their community reintegration process for a period of 12 months. Data will be collected through focus groups and interviews.
Through this study, the Old Brewery Mission hopes to determine the value added of each program on the reintegration process of service users and to better understand the different elements that hinder or facilitate this process. Some of the questions to be answered during this phase of the research include:
(1) Where are the clients who have left our transition services?
(2) What is their situation after 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year?
(3) Are they looking for employment?
(4) What percentage of clients return to the Old Brewery Mission shelter after going through its services a first time?
The lessons learned during this project will be shared with the network of homeless service providers (e.g., Homeless Hub). Findings will be disseminated in and presented at a variety of peer-reviewed conferences and journals.
