Dr. Jim Frankish, Co-Lead Principal Investigator
Dr. Jim Frankish is Professor and Director of the Centre for Population Health Promotion Research at UBC. He is appointed in the College for Interdisciplinary Studies, and School of Population & Public Health (Medicine). Current projects are the 2010 Games & healthy inner city communities, service utilization by the homeless with mental illness, poverty & nutrition education, health literacy in street youth, and health regions & non-medical determinants of health. Recent studies focused on urban-rural migration in homeless, media advocacy & homelessness, measuring community capacity, indicators of healthy communities, and health promotion in primary care. He is a member of a national research-training program on population-health interventions. 

Jim has worked with 34 disciplines/departments on more than 100 research projects. He created an innovative course (IHHS 200) on the meaning, measurement and determinants of health, and is creating a 'Health 101' course for Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Jim served as Chair of the Sociobehavioural Ethics Review Committee and is a Board Member of the Lookout Homeless Shelter Society. He is a member of the National Collaborating Centre on Determinants of Health.

Dr. Michael Krausz, Co-Lead Principal Investigator
Dr. Michael Krausz is the Co-Lead Researcher on the Vancouver At Home/Chez Soi project. He also currently holds a number of other titles including Professor of Psychiatry, Epidemiology and Public Health University of British Columbia (UBC) and St. Paul`s Hospital, Providence Health Care Centre of Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences (CHEOS);  Medical Director of the Burnaby Centre for Mental Health and Addiction;  Medical Director of the Regional Program for Complex Concurrent Disorders; Founding Fellow of the Institute of Mental Health at UBC; Member of the Brain Research Centre at UBC; Member of the Research Advisory Council of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research of the Canadian Centre of Substance Abuse (CCSA) of the Vancouver Foundation;  Fellow of the World Innovation Foundation (WIF).

Michael (MD, PhD, FRCPC) started his professional career as a nurse in adolescent psychiatry working especially with young psychotic clients. After Medical School in Hamburg the H.Böckler Foundation awarded him a doctoral grant. He wrote his thesis on long-term course of schizophrenia starting in adolescence. In 1985 he started his residency in Adult Psychiatry until 1991. Parallel he wrote his PhD on “Psychosis and Addiction” evaluating the entanglement of severe mental illness and harmful use of psychotropic substances, which then became the major research focus of his further work. He became then responsible for major studies about mental illness among intravenous drug users with over 1000 individuals and especially the German Heroin trial as biggest randomized clinical trial in Addiction Research in Europe in this field. He could show, that it is possible to improve the most difficult to treat clients with the appropriate intervention and contributed to an important paradigm shift through clinical research. He founded and edited two scientific journals, which until now have a major impact in this area: European Addiction Research and Suchttherapie.  He has over 250 publications and even more invited presentations as part of his scientific contributions to this point. After over 20 years in different positions in Germany he was selected as the first Providence BC Leadership Chair for Addiction Research in 2005.

Michael served on several Advisory Boards on international, national, provincial and City level in Germany and Canada, including the Senior Research Advisory Board from CCSA, the Research Advisory Council of the Michael Smith Foundation and the as Co Chair of the Collaboration for Change in Vancouver.

Dr. Michelle Patterson, Research Coordinator
Dr. Michelle Patterson is a Scientist and Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University (SFU). She obtained a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of British Columbia. Before joining SFU, she worked for three years at Yale University as co-director of Yale Anxiety and Mood Services, as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Yale Child Study Centre, and as a lecturer in the Department of Psychology.

Michelle's research interests focus on the intersection of housing, mental illness and addiction. She is interested in system-level integration and change within marginalized communities, and how systemic factors influence individual and collective perceptions of belonging and community.

Greg Richmond, Associate Director, RainCity Housing and ACT Project Team Lead
Greg Richmond is an Associate Director at RainCity Housing and Support Society in Vancouver. Greg has a particular interest in homelessness and has developed and implemented specialised outreach and supportive housing programs for homeless people with complex health concerns. He has also worked with municipal, provincial and federal authorities to develop and evaluate responses to homelessness. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Simon Fraser University.

Tracy Schonfeld (MSW, RSW), Director of Community Services, Coast Mental Health and ICM Project Team Lead
Tracy has worked in the non-profit mental health field for most of the past 20 years. Currently she is the Director of Community Services for Coast Mental Health with responsibilities overseeing a low barrier front line drop in program in the Downtown South of Vancouver as well as a Peer Support training and employment program, a Homeless Outreach program and two housing programs.

The mandate of all of these programs is to engage and advocate for individuals who are underserved in the health/mental health system, many of whom are homeless or are at risk of being homeless and who may have substance use issues along with their mental health concerns.

The Research Demonstration Project is the newest addition to her portfolio of responsibilities, overseeing the Intensive Case Management part of the project.

Tracy holds a BA in Psychology, a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work, a Certificate in Substance Abuse Counselling and a Master’s degree in Social Work.

Julian M Somers, MSc, PhD, RPsych, Lead Researcher, Simon Fraser University
Dr. Somers is an Associate Professor in SFU’s Faculty of Health Sciences.  His research focuses on the integration of services and information in order to reduce substance use problems and improve mental health in the population.

Dr. Somers completed his doctorate under G. Alan Marlatt in the area of addictions, and has collaborated extensively with branches of government on initiatives involving substance use and mental health.  He has led Provincial and multi-jurisdictional projects in the areas of telehealth, primary healthcare reform, housing, and the corrections system.  Dr. Somers has held a number of academic and professional leadership positions, including Director of the UBC Psychology Clinic, President of the BC Psychological Association, and Director of the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction.

Verena Strehlau, Field Research Manager 
Dr. Verena Strehlau is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia (UBC) and a Research Scientist at the Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences (CHEOS) in Vancouver. Verena obtained her MD and PhD (Dr. med.) at Phillips-University in Marburg, Germany and worked as a clinician in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy and as a lecturer for medical and nursing students before moving to Canada in 2008.

Verena also completed a three year training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy at the Institute for Behavioral Therapy and Behavioral Medicine (IVV) in Marburg, as well as Addiction Medicine training in Munich, Germany.

Verena’s research interest focuses on mental illness and substance use. She is especially interested in the younger homeless population and in psychotherapeutic interventions for people with multiple struggles, such as substance use, mental health issues and homelessness.