Executive Summary:

Outflow Ministry Inc. is a poverty relief, Christian faith-based organization in Saint John, NB.   We operate our city’s only men’s homeless shelter, only evening community meal program, a women’s drop-in in partnership with the Sisters of Charity, an employment and training centre, and an award-winning social enterprise construction company.  Our intention is to walk with the people we meet, getting to know them when they are hungry, hurting, or heart-broken and seeing them make positive change in their lives.

We would like to pilot an artist-in-residence program as part of our poverty reduction ministry.  Outflow is a relationship-based ministry and we design our responses to address the effects of poverty that we see on the people we know.  By doing this, we are able to address real needs in our community.  As the operators of a men’s shelter, a community supper program, and a women’s drop-in, Outflow knows more than one hundred people who are either homeless or at risk of homelessness.  Among this group are gifted artists who have significant employment barriers (such as a criminal record or a mental illness).  We would like to provide them with an opportunity to use their abilities to earn an income.  This project will directly benefit people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, but who also have a marketable skill.

Outflow anticipates that up to 10 artists can participate in this program during a one-year period.  As a program that is designed to serve people with significant employment barriers including mental illness, we will not have a one-size fits all approach to artist-in-residency.  Some people may be full-time employees through this program.  Others may join the program for a few hours per week as part of a broader income-generating plan.  Our expectation is to tailor the residency around the person in residence.

We wish to provide an hourly living-wage for artists and to allow Outflow to provide art supplies for artists to produce art.  We expect that this funding will allow us to pay up to ten artists for about 3300 total hours of work for one year.  At the end of one year, Outflow will assess the results of the pilot project and determine what, if any, adjustments are needed to make it a sustainable program long term.

We anticipate that each participant of this program will be able to earn an income, thereby either increasing their ability to exit homelessness or lowering their risk of becoming homeless.  Additionally, participants will learn employment soft-skills – such as punctuality, positivity, and confidence.  Such skills are transferable to any workplace should a participant wish to pursue another type of opportunity in the future.

Measurable Outcomes:

– Artists who are either homeless now or at risk of homelessness will create visual art pieces while receiving sufficient income to maintain safe and affordable housing in Saint John, NB during the duration of this project.

– Outflow will use this funding as seed money to create an artist-in-residence program that is self-sustaining and provides employment for homeless or at risk artists as a part of our social enterprise initiative and by tapping into the rapidly expanding art scene in Saint John, NB by the end of this funding cycle.