What is Making the Shift?

Youth Homelessness Social Innovation Lab

Between 2019 and 2025, Making the Shift funded, conducted, prototyped, and mobilized cutting-edge research to prevent and end youth homelessness in Canada.

The legacy of Making the Shift lives on through A Way Home Canada and the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness.

It Started with a Bold Vision

When Making the Shift launched in 2019, it carried a bold vision: what if youth homelessness in Canada could be prevented before it began? For decades, the dominant response to homelessness in Canada had been crisis management—shelters, emergency supports, and short-term fixes. But MtS dared to imagine a different future. 

Made possible by a grant from the Networks of Centres of Excellence, MtS invested $9.3 million over six years in 39 funded projects, supported more than 2,800 young people and 400 families through demonstration projects, and built a pan-Canadian network of lived experts, researchers, policymakers, and service providers. 

Guided by principles of co-creation, co-ownership, and meaningful collaboration, Making the Shift has endeavoured not just to study the issue of youth homelessness—but to transform the systems that produce it in order to prevent it altogether. Early on, this vision was strengthened by its designation as a Geneva United Nations Charter Centre of Excellence, elevating MtS to a global platform for research, advocacy and knowledge exchange. 

Our Impact

Networks of Centres of Excellence

Making the Shift contributes to the transformation of how we respond to youth homelessness through research and knowledge mobilization specific to youth homelessness prevention and housing stabilization.

About the Networks

The Making the Shift vision began in 2017 with a community-research project funded by the Government of Canada’s Youth Employment and Skills Strategy. This project, the Demonstration Lab of Making the Shift, developed, implemented, and evaluated four promising programs for youth experiencing or at risk of homelessness. The excitement and potential of this project, along with encouragement and support of York University, prompted co-leaders Dr. Stephen Gaetz (Canadian Observatory on Homelessness) and Melanie Redman (A Way Home Canada) to apply for Canada’s Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program. NCEs are mandated to develop an academically led research network that focuses on creating collaborative solutions to issues that are critical to Canadians and to the world. MtS officially incorporated as an NCE on February 27, 2019. In 2020, we successfully advocated to have York University (and Making the Shift as a partner) designated as a UNECE Charter Centre, creating a global platform to learn, share, and mobilize knowledge about the importance of prevention.

Toronto Centre of Excellence on Youth Homelessness Prevention

The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and A Way Home Canada leverage international partnership and collaboration to advance the movement for youth homelessness prevention in Canada and the UNECE region.

About the TCE

Co-Leadership

Making the Shift (MtS) is co-led by the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and A Way Home Canada