Our meeting aimed to prepare In the Wind artists and others for the Feb. 20 Alliance to End Homelessness Conference where we will be both selling art and having a table talk discussion on Recovery and Art.
We all introduced ourselves and our link to the arts and homelessness and how we see the links. We discussed ideas about changing things: housing policy – noting
- changes – usually are small to address poverty and that the important big changes don’t happen.;
- one way of supporting homeless people to share their art is to help access to digital technology – a USB stick is practical
- like to make a video on specific local situations, expose what that landlord was doing
- produce a play on homelessness
- want music/guitar lessons
- experience with running an art class in an Ottawa Community housing building was negative as the power groups in the building spoke negatively, scared people away.
- Mental Illness Care Giver Association (MICA) http://www.micaontario.com/ is having 20th Anniversary of Art in Strathcona Park in August and building towards the event by sponsoring other Art Sales events before then.
- Learning and creating art everyday is valuable, needed, ________?
- In the Wind Art collective focus’ a lot on: marketing, display – sharing approaches

Here is link to information about the conference – Thursday February 20th
https://www.endhomelessnessottawa.ca/community-forum-on-ending-homelessness