Bee Lee Soh

Bee is an active community volunteer and anti-poverty activist with non-profit advisory committees and community groups. As part of MAP’s Community Expert Group, Bee is sharing over seven years of experience in community advocacy and shares her lived experience with homelessness and shelter system. Bee is a member of the City of Toronto’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Lived Experience Advisory Group. From September 2017 to August 2018, Bee was also a member of the federal government’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on Poverty leading up to the first National Poverty Reduction Strategy.

Daniela Mergarten

Daniela has many years of social justice experience and has worn many different hats and several of them in leadership positions. Presently, she is the Co-chair of the Toronto Alliance to End Homelessness (PWLE) person with Lived Experience Caucus. As part of MAP’s Community Expert Group, Daniela is sharing her knowledge and lived experiences with housing and income challenges.

Daniela is member of the Steering committee that is presently on a committee working with the Housing Secretariat in Toronto. She has been chosen to work with (ERAC) a federal committee that is presently collecting data pertaining to evictions. This committee includes the Federal Housing Advocate, Marie – Josee Houle. Daniela is involved with 2 research projects through St. Michael’s Hospital, MARCO and MAP. She serves on the MARCO Steering Committee and Community Group as well as the Encampment Project, Community Committee, KT Committee and the Peer Research Evaluation Committee. She is also a member of the Canadian Lived Experience Leadership Network (CLELN)

Frank Crichlow

Frank is a community health work/satellite worker at South Riverdale Community Health Centre and a long time community advocate for better harm reduction services. As part of MAP’s Community Expert Group, Frank is sharing his knowledge and expertise on harm reduction practices and desire to bring more diverse voices in research. He is currently the president of the Canadian Association of people Who Use Drugs Canadian and sits on many committees focus on harm reduction such as the City of Toronto Decriminalization Committee. Frank Attended the United Nations 62 and 63 sessions on the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna 2019 and 2020.

Opal Sparks

Opal is the proud recipient of the Rosie McGroarty award and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal, which she received for her involvement in research and social justice projects. As part of MAP’s Community Expert Group, Opal sharing her knowledge and experience of homelessness, housing, and health.  Opal was the co-chair of the executive committee for ISAC Legal Clinic, and Board Chair for PCLS Legal Clinic. Currently, she is also enjoying doing work with Asemaa Circles this year and helping to maintain the High Park Oak Savannah lands.  Over the years, Opal has done research projects with Daily Bread Food Bank (provincial Poverty Reduction Strategy, Hungry City), Wellesley Institute (community participatory projects), Caledon Institute, Tamarack Institute, Atkinson Foundation, People’s Blueprint, Social Assistance modernization process and Social Planning Toronto. Opal participated in a year-long Maytree Leaders for Change program. She has consulted with Access Alliance, Dr. Gary Bloch’s poverty health initiative, CAMH (Empowerment Council), spoken for the United Nations and United Way GTA. Opal participated in the pilot Advocacy program at the STOP for several years.

Her favorite memories: Opal was part of the forming of the Centro de Medicina Natural, a community based health initiative, and speaking on several occasions for Take Back the Night. She worked for many years at Food Share Toronto as a community animator and facilitated an art group at Roncesvalles United church for several years. Most recently, Opal worked with Greenest City as an earth worker with Dunn Garden.

Rene Adams

Rene wears many hats in the community and is bringing valuable insight and experience to MAP Community Expert Group. Her various roles include:  Maytree Leader for Change, Community Advocate, Peer Advocate, Facilitator, Community Animator, Mental Health Support Professional, Provincial Government Advisor, Blogger and Health Equity Research Consultant. Rene is also a current board member of the Jane Finch and Davenport Perth Community Ministries, a former board member of The Income Security Advocacy Centre. She uses her own experience of marginalization and living with multiple hidden disabilities to educate others and advocate for meaningful systemic change by promoting the empowerment of marginalized community members to find creative solutions to individual and community challenges.

Sa’ad Talia

Sa’ad is a long-time and accomplished advocate for better housing and mental health supports. As part of MAP’s Community Expert Group, Sa’ad is sharing his knowledge and lived experiences with housing, mental health and addictions challenges and now, poverty and social isolation. Sa’ad advocates for PWLE rights, inclusion, and advancement. He is a Peer Counselor, with a personal background in Harm Reduction, which he uses to provide online harm reduction resources to South Asians with addiction issues.

Veronica Snooks

Veronica is a member of Mi’kmaw Qalipo First Nations from Newfoundland. She is a trained peer worker and is studying Indigenous Mental Health and Addictions at First Nations Technical Institute College. As part of MAP’s Community Expert Group, Veronica is sharing her knowledge and lived experiences with homelessness, poverty, domestic violence as well as systemic violence against herself and children, mental health and addiction. As well as systemic violence against myself and children. As I worked my own recovery, my own survival. I found other peers. I found voices from the street. I was taught about the issues that hold us back and harm us. I found a new sense of empowerment. I began to become an advocate. Veronica has been involved with: Lived Experienced Advisory Group (LEAG) (alumni member); EC Empowerment Council –CAMH (board member); The Dream Team (working member); MARCO (MAP research project); Co-Chair TAEH-PWLE Caucus; CLELN-Canadian Lived Experience leadership network Steering Committee and principles Team. Steering Committee for the Social Housing and Human Rights Project; SSHR; Patient & Community Engagement in Research Committee (PCERC) Unity Health; DET OHT Stepped Care Oversight Committee; Climate Action Champion with under the Environment & Climate Division, City of Toronto.

Kefa Omori Mogoncho

Kefa Omori Mogoncho is a multidisciplinary professional whose work spans finance, community development, and public health research. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance from KCA University (Kenya) and a Diploma in Community Developmental Service Work from Oxford College (Canada), combining financial acumen with a deep commitment to social impact, addressing poverty and community empowerment.

Kefa is a dedicated peer researcher who leverages his knowledge and lived experience to inform research, advocacy, and program design aimed at addressing homelessness. His primary interests focus on homelessness prevention, immigrant homelessness, and mental health. He has contributed as a peer researcher to different initiatives focused on housing, health equity, and the social determinants of health

Currently, he is currently sharing his lived experiences towards the design of a Recuperative Health Space project for unhoused patients discharged from the hospital, as well as providing his feedback on research and evaluation projects especially from the Homelessness, Housing and Health team at MAP

Beyond research and advocacy, Kefa is an active member of Toronto Street Soccer, an initiative that fosters inclusion and community among individuals experiencing social and economic exclusion, including those who are unhoused and newcomers.

Kimberly (Kim) Mitchell

Kim is a research assistant at UHT with over 25 years of Lived Experience. She is the Chair of Alliance for Healthier Communities, the Co-Chair of The Poplar Network, a Member of Clinical Trials Ontario College of Lived Experience, member of the Toronto Alliance to End Homelessness (TAEH) CAB and an Advisor with The Steering Committee for the Drug Evaluation Policy, an Advisor for Snap program, and a public speaker. In her advocacy work, Kim has written a magazine article, an online blog and engaged in an on-air TV interview with the Daily Bread. In 2022, Kim ran the Lived Experience Lounge at the CAEH conference in Toronto. She is a member of Mom’s Stop the Harm as well as National Safer Supply Community of Practice. Beyond her regular contributions to the MAP CEG work on homelessness, housing and health, Kim is currently sharing her lived experiences towards the design of a Recuperative Health Space project for unhoused patients discharged from the hospital. Kim believes the world should be a place where everybody is treated fairly and she will do anything she can to help that. Kim also has a special place in her heart for animals and children.