Role Overview
The Director, Programs and Services provides strategic and operational leadership across the organization’s continuum of housing and support services, including emergency shelters, transitional housing, scattered-site housing, and facilities operations. The role also oversees facilities operations, including the management, maintenance, and upkeep of all organizational buildings and external housing properties. Working closely with facilities team, external contractors, property owners, and internal key parties, the Director ensures facilities support positive outcomes for youth, staff, and visitors.
The Director is responsible for ensuring that Eva's programs provide more than a place to stay they create a pathway from shelter to stability, security, and ultimately thriving. The incumbent will strengthen Eva’s integrated service model and identify opportunities to innovate, improve outcomes, and build a more coordinated continuum of care.
This role leads the development, implementation, evaluation, and continuous improvement of programs, services and facilities that respond to the complex and evolving needs of youth experiencing homelessness or housing instability. The role ensures that programs, services, and facilities are youth-centred, trauma-informed, culturally responsive, evidence-informed, and grounded in the belief that every young person deserves the opportunity to build a safe, secure, and meaningful future.
This position reports to the Senior Director, Programs and Services. This position will require travel between Eva’s sites.
Our Approach
Eva’s believes that housing is the foundation, not the destination. The Director, Programs and Services will help translate that belief into a coordinated continuum of programs where every interaction and intervention contributes to a young person’s ability to move forward.
The goal is not simply to help young people survive homelessness. It is to create the conditions in which they can experience shelter, build stability, achieve security, and ultimately thrive.
Responsibilities
Program Leadership and Oversight
- Provide strategic and operational oversight for Eva’s two youth shelters, transitional housing program, and scattered-site housing, including resourcing and scheduling.
- Ensure consistent, high-quality service delivery across programs while recognizing the distinct needs and purposes of each housing setting.
- Establish clear program standards, service expectations, performance measures, and accountability mechanisms.
- Ensure programs are accessible, welcoming, inclusive, and responsive to youth with diverse identities, experiences, abilities, and needs.
- Support management in creating strong, healthy, accountable, and youth-centred teams.
- Provide strategic oversight of facilities operations across Eva's shelters, transitional housing, scattered-site housing portfolio, and administrative locations.
- Ensure facilities are maintained in a manner that promotes safety, accessibility, operational effectiveness, infection prevention, and positive youth experiences.
- Oversee the integration of program operations and facility needs to ensure service environments support program outcomes and organizational priorities.
- Monitor site conditions, capital improvement needs, preventative maintenance activities, and facility-related risks across all locations.
Developing a Continuum from Shelter to Thriving
- Lead the ongoing development of a comprehensive service model organized around four interconnected outcomes:
- Shelter - Safety and immediate stabilization
- Ensure young people have access to welcoming, responsive, and high-quality emergency shelter that meets immediate needs while beginning the work of connection, assessment, and stabilization.
- Stability - Building a foundation for housing and wellbeing
- Develop programs that help youth establish sustainable housing, strengthen relationships and support networks, address barriers, and build the practical and emotional foundations needed for greater independence.
- Security - Creating lasting safety and belonging
- Advance approaches that help youth achieve longer-term housing security, financial stability, physical and emotional safety, connection to community, and access to the supports they need to sustain their progress.
- Thriving - Supporting youth to realize their potential
- Develop opportunities that move beyond crisis response toward education, employment, healthy relationships, leadership, creativity, community participation, wellness, and personal goals - supporting youth to define and pursue what thriving means to the Program Development and Innovation
- Lead the design and implementation of new programs and service approaches in response to emerging youth needs, system gaps, and community priorities.
- Develop innovative approaches that reduce barriers to housing and improve long-term outcomes for youth.
- Embed youth voice and lived experience in program design, evaluation, and decision-making.
- Identify opportunities to strengthen prevention, diversion, housing retention, aftercare, and community-based supports.
- Foster a culture of learning, experimentation, innovation, and continuous improvement.
- Monitor emerging research, promising practices, policy developments, and trends affecting youth homelessness and housing.
Data, Service Quality, Outcomes, and Evaluation
- Establish and monitor meaningful outcomes across the continuum from shelter through housing stability and thriving.
- Develop systems to track program effectiveness, impact, youth outcomes, service quality, and equity.
- Collect relevant data from multiple sources, including program participants, staff, administrative records, and external parties.
- Use quantitative and qualitative data, including client feedback, to inform decision-making.
- Lead regular program reviews, audits, and assessments, and develop improvement plans where outcomes or service quality can be strengthened.
- Utilize appropriate evaluation designs (e.g., pre-post assessments) depending on the nature of the programs and available resources.
- Prepare data analysis and evaluation results for presentations to senior management, staff, Board, and external opportunities.
- Ensure programs meet organizational standards, contractual requirements, accreditation expectations, and applicable legislation and regulations.
- Establish quality assurance mechanisms to monitor program delivery, client outcomes, and satisfaction levels.
- Oversee the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data related to program outcomes client demographics, and service utilization.
- Ensure compliance with data privacy and confidentiality regulations and maintain accurate and secure records.
People Leadership and Organizational Culture
- Provide leadership, coaching, and support to program managers and teams.
- Build a culture characterized by compassion, accountability, collaboration, learning, and respect.
- Ensure direct report management employees and staff have the training, tools, supervision, and support required to provide excellent services.
- Promote trauma-informed, harm-reduction-oriented, anti-oppressive, culturally responsive, and strength-based practices.
- Support psychologically safe workplaces and effective approaches to staff wellbeing and retention.
- Work with People and Culture and senior leadership on workforce planning, recruitment, performance management, and professional development.
Partnerships and System Leadership
- Develop strong relationships with youth-serving agencies, housing providers, health and mental-health services, schools, employment and training organizations, Indigenous and community organizations, and other system partners.
- Represent Eva’s values, objectives, and reputation in relevant sectors, government relations, and community forums.
- Cultivate relationships with community leaders, faith-based organizations, and grassroots initiatives to strengthen Eva’s presence and impact in the community.
- Identify opportunities for collaboration, shared initiatives, coordinated service delivery, and system change.
- Advocate for government policies, resources, and approaches that improve outcomes for youth experiencing homelessness.
- Strengthen pathways between Eva’s programs and the broader housing and social-service system.
Risk, Safety, and Compliance
- Ensure programs operate within strong frameworks for youth safety, risk management, critical incidents, privacy, confidentiality, and duty of care.
- Oversee the development and implementation of policies and procedures that support safe, consistent, and effective service delivery.
- Ensure appropriate responses to complex client situations, critical incidents, and emerging operational risks.
- Promote environments in which youth and staff feel physically, emotionally, and culturally safe.
- Provide oversight of Facilities and collaborate with IPAC (Infection Prevention and Control) teams to ensure safe, healthy, compliant, and well-maintained environments across all sites.
- Ensure facility-related risks are identified, monitored, and mitigated through inspections, preventative maintenance, emergency preparedness planning, and corrective action processes.
Resource and Financial Management
- Participate in annual planning and budgeting for Programs and Services.
- Monitor program resources and expenditures to ensure responsible, timely, and effective use of organizational and public resources.
- Identify opportunities to leverage existing resources, develop partnerships, and support new funding opportunities.
- Work collaboratively with fundraising, finance, and senior leadership to align program priorities with organizational sustainability.
- Develop and manage facility operating budgets, maintenance expenditures, capital repair plans, and related contracts.
- Monitor building-related expenditures and ensure resources are allocated effectively to maintain safe and functional facilities.
- Participate in long-term capital planning and asset management to support organizational sustainability and service delivery objectives.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degrees in Community Development, Public Administration, Human Services, housing, or a related discipline; equivalent education and experience may be considered. Master’s degree is an asset. Qualifications outside of Canada must be evaluated by a recognized certification body to demonstrate Canadian equivalency.
- Minimum 7 years of experience cultivating and leading management staff in a unionized environment.
- Minimum 5 years of practical experience in the nonprofit sector.
- Significant leadership experience in homelessness, housing, shelters, youth services, community services, or a related social-service environment.
- Strong financial and budgeting skills and demonstrated ability to manage, guide and lead managerial staff to interpret financial information and utilize appropriate financial processes to maintain budgets and produce accurate financial reports.
- Strong, operational, communication, and relationship-management skills.
- Demonstrated experience leading multiple programs, locations, or service streams and working seamlessly across departments.
- Demonstrated experience overseeing facilities operations, property management, building services, maintenance programs, or multi-site facilities in a community, housing, healthcare, shelter, or social-service environment with annual workplans
- Knowledge of facility management principles including prioritizing with a ticketing system, preventative maintenance, capital planning, asset management, workplace health and safety, emergency preparedness, and regulatory compliance.
- Experience managing external contractors, service providers, property managers, consultants, and facility-related vendor relationships.
- Familiarity with applicable legislation and regulations governing facility operations, fire and life safety, accessibility requirements, public health standards, and occupational health and safety.
- Experience leading cross-functional operational initiatives involving facilities, program delivery, health and safety, and service quality improvement using a customer service satisfaction approach.
- Demonstrated experience in program design, implementation, and evaluation of programs for youth experiencing systematic barriers to equitable inclusion in everyday society leading to inequitable outcomes.
- A fundamental understanding of current issues and challenges facing individuals from under-served communities and historically under-represented groups, with a particular focus on issues impacting Black communities, Indigenous communities, racialized communities, LGBTQ2S+ communities and disability communities.
- Experience in developing funding proposals and impact report writing.
- High level of computer literacy with MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
- Strong verbal, written, and facilitation skills.
- Strong understanding of youth homelessness, housing instability, trauma, poverty, and the systemic barriers affecting young people.
- Demonstrated experience operating a social purpose enterprise.
- Experience operating seasonal relief programs for the City of Toronto.
- Experienced working with unionized frontline staff, peer workers, and management as direct reports.
- Experience developing, implementing, evaluating, and improving programs and services.
- Demonstrated ability to lead through change and uncertainty, and build effective, collaborative teams.
- Experience using data, evaluation, and client feedback to improve services and outcomes.
- Demonstrated knowledge of trauma-informed, harm reduction, strengths-based, anti-oppressive, and culturally responsive approaches.
- Experience working collaboratively with government, funders, community organizations, and other system partners.
- Flexibility to work some evenings and weekends required – may share on-call responsibilities.
- Certification in Standard level C First/Aid CPR
- Clear Vulnerable Sector Check is required
