Elspeth McKay

Operation Come Home

Operation Come Home was created in 1971 to address a need to support homeless youth. Originally, the charity was known as Operation Go Home and focused on assisting runaway youth who were in danger across the country to return home to their families. In the 1990s, the charity recognized that there was a much greater need in their home city of Ottawa to provide a variety of programs to the homeless and at-risk population. Since its inception, Operation Come Home has had the mission of preventing homeless youth from becoming homeless adults and expanding its programs allowed for the agency and its employees to better accomplish this mission. Operation Come Home provides a variety of programs and services such as: a built-in alternative high school; employment programs which assist youth with job searching, job preparation and job retention; a resource center that provides basic needs assistance and support; housing programs that assist with advocacy, housing searches, housing retention and financial education; an addictions program; and three social enterprises. In 2018, Operation Come Home engaged over 630 unique clients who accessed at least one of OCH's programs over for a total of 6,400+ times.