Anyone who lives in a:
SHELTER,
HOSTEL or
OTHER
RESIDENCES, or is
TRANSIENT.
SHORT is an organization of and for the people who live in the homeless shelters, the men's and women's hostels, and many other housing arrangements supplied by the federal, provincial, and municipal governments, and a wide variety of charitable organizations, non-profit agencies, and even the private sector. Standard landlord and tenant law doesn't apply in many of these situations, and there isn't even a guarantee of a residents council to raise concerns.
Since its founding in 2003 SHORT has been a group of homeless and formerly homeless people, providing mutual support and encouragement in dealing with the issues of homelessness, addiction, mental illness and the desperate grinding poverty that still exists in the richest province of one of the richest countries in the world.
There are many groups fighting poverty and homelessness, in fact the "homelessness industry appears to be thriving in Ontario. The organizers of SHORT believe that the best chance for change will come from helping ourselves. In social work terms, we like the SPARC model of social change - involving the people living in poverty as active and knowledgeble participants and leaders.
"If we often deceive ourselves about what we need, we are likely to be deceived about what strangers need. There are few presumptions in human relations more dangerous than the idea that one knows what another human being needs better than they do themselves. In politics, this presumption is a warrant to ignore democratic preferences and to trample on freedom. In other realms too, the arrogation of the right by doctors to define the needs of their patients, of social workers to administer the needs of their clients, and finally of parents to decide the needs of their children is in each case a warrant for abuse."
"The Needs of Strangers: An essay on privacy, solidarity, and the politics of being human", Penguin Books, 1986, p.11