Chaz Smith has been serving in the homeless sector for over a decade. Having spent many years building relationships within the community. Chaz had personally experienced homelessness in 2005 to 2008, where he struggled to obtain food and take care of his mental health. As he shares in media, from his lived experience of homelessness and tumultuous life as a youth, he had learned to hate himself, at the time of experiencing homelessness. He says he, “felt like a waste in society.” It wasn’t until one day a particular support worker refused to give up on him. Chaz was brought into a harm reduction, housing first program with supports. His troubles now behind him, as he healed from years living homeless, he was then set up to now be launched into a career Inspiring a decade of passion and hope to give back to serve as a result. We all have a story that no one knows anything about. Chaz has given his life to use his story to help others.  In 2015, Chaz founded the Street Outreach Program ” BeTheChangeYYC.”

The ability to be a recipient of the housing first program, through the Infinity Project, supported him in his healing. In the end, Chaz Smith had supports around him to get him back to school. His environment promoted growth and stability. So many folks Chaz knew got lost in addiction, stuck suffering within themselves because of their mental health – without supports, they continued self medicating with illicit substances. As Chaz often explains, “The brain is a powerful thing and it will do what it needs to survive. Addiction is an example of this survival.” Feeling the need to give back to the community, Chaz served as a shelter staff in the Boys and Girls Club of Calgary (now known as Trellis)  in 2010 & 2011 at youth shelter Avenue 15. He then moved to also working with the Calgary Homeless Foundation as a Community Youth Liaison and Consultant on the 10-year-plan to end homelessness in Calgary; specializing in the youth plan.

Included within the job, Chaz also directed many focus groups with youth to support Calgary’s 10-year plan to end homelessness. In addition to this monumental contribution to the 10-Year Plan, Chaz Smith served as a Research Assistant in 2012 for The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness for the H1N1 pandemic response project. He also gave many public presentations on his lived experience, contributing to fundraisers. His participation and public speeches contributed to help raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the shelters and programs he previously lived at. He served as an advocate for those in need. As the province of Alberta moved to a housing first approach to bring about an end to homelessness, He also attended those conferences.  like the 7 cities conference on homelessness, and some of the first national ending homelessness conferences, developing his networking skills, and education within the sector. Chaz, also persued many certificates to becoming more trauma informed, for example certificates on: Trauma and the nervous system, Addictions, Mental health, Conflict Resolution/De-Escalation, Suicide assessment and Intervention, Non-violent crises intervention, Inter & Intra Personal Communication Skills,  Compassion fatigue, Vicarious trauma & burnout; to name a few.

In August 2015, Chaz started non-profit organization BeTheChangeYYC which served as one of the only street level, boots on the ground grassroots outreach teams, at the time. Over the 8 years, building a team, they have trained many hundreds of outreach workers, advising and educating new teams as they started such as The Alex’s Street Outreach Team, Street Sisters Society, Forest Lawn Ambassadors Program, and others. Chaz’s organization, along with their team of committed outreach workers has fundamentally changed the dynamic of the streets while continuing to contribute to the homeless serving sector clients & community at large. They have helped increase knowledge and accessibility to client services. Team BeTheChangeYYC has helped advise folks within governments about policy and framework’s to support folks. You can also find Chaz nowadays in and out of city hall, talking to media outlets, and leading the street outreach team at BeTheChangeYYC.

His mission is to empower individuals experiencing homelessness. Advocate for systemic change that requires re-designing, an equitable system for timely access to safe, decent affordable housing with supports. Everyone should have the same opportunity to be housed, as Chaz did, to then be set up for success to give back to society. To help inspire the end to cycles of homelessness. To speak out, and remind others that people experiencing homelessness are just at a place in time, that where they are at, is not who they are. To remind others that we all have inherent human dignity and when inspired with having all our basics needs met, have so much more potential to give back. That if he was given up on imagine what would not be today. To continue going forward as an example, with his peers, of what it truly means to Be The Change in YYC (Calgary).