Background on Strategies for Gaining Community Acceptance Workshop and Train The Trainer Sessions

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) (Ontario Region) and the National Secretariat on Homelessness (NSH), Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) formed a working partnership in 2003 to undertake the Strategies for Gaining Community Acceptance Workshop and Train The Trainer session.

The result of this partnership is a workshop and associated workshop materials that are designed to provide municipalities and related affordable housing and homelessness service providers with tools, capacity and best practices to overcome "Not in My Backyard" (NIMBY) opposition as it relates to affordable housing and homelessness services.

The primary audience for the workshop is municipal housing managers, planners, public and private affordable housing and homelessness service providers and community groups.

To date, the workshop has been delivered on a pilot project basis in the municipalities of Halton, Guelph, London, Halifax and Toronto.

Workshop Components

1. Front end learning component: Understanding "Not in My Backyard" and Building Community Support.
2. Case studies and case study synthesis: 25 Ontario case studies highlight community concerns, proponent's process with the community and lessons learned (9 national case studies are currently available combined with additional case research that will be available in the Fall, 2005).
3. Four interactive exercises and an action planning tool.

Train The Trainer

Since the delivery of a number of pilot NIMBY workshops, a one-day Train The Trainer (TTT) session has been developed, again through the CMHC/NSH partnership. The TTT session is designed to provide participants with the capacity and knowledge transfer tools to deliver the workshop within their community utilizing adult learning and education principles, effective training techniques and exploring the NIMBY workshop fundamentals.