In the next two weeks, thousands of boxes of chocolates, coffee mugs, paperweights, and calendars will trade hands in the new office tradition, the “Secret Santa” gift exchange. This year, the Homes First Foundation offers an alternative to more gifts that will add another inch to someone's waist or another box to their closet.

Homes First has just launched a “Secret Santa Portal” to make it easier than ever to make an online donation for a Secret Santa gift. All funds raised will go to Strachan House, Canada’s first transitional housing project for chronically homeless men and women.

“Just $15 pays for a night's shelter at Strachan House,” says Jeff Smith, Chair of the Homes First Foundation. “That’s a priceless gift – and who really needs another box of candy, anyway?”

Donors who use the Secret Santa Portal - www.homesfirst.on.ca/secretsanta - will receive gift scrolls by email that they can print and present at holiday events. The concept and construction of this site gift giving alternative web-site was Iserve Technology Consulting Ltd ( www.istcl.com) President Robert Preston and the Social Housing Services Corporation ( www.shscorp.ca), Board Chairman, Gordon Chong.

“At Strachan House, we see every day how much different a safe, secure home makes in people’s lives. The project is home to 76 chronically homeless men and women, “ says Gabriella Micallef, Executive Director of the Foundation. “Projects like Strachan House not only serve a community in need, they do so cost-effectively.”

Research conducted by Richard Matern, MSW for the Homes First Foundation found that Strachan House provides shelter at about $15 a night – while a night in a detox centre average $138, in a corrections facility $150, and for emergency support services $153.

Strachan House is an innovative program by Homes First Society that provides housing to people previously living on the streets or in shelters. Its goals is to be a place for homeless people to live as well as an opportunity to stabalize their lives. It is an innovative housing prototype in a renovated, three-storey 19th-century warehouse in Toronto. It opened in December 1996 to provide short and long-term shelter serving 76 chronically homeless men and women.

Most of the Strachan House is given over to public and semi-public uses, unlike conventional apartment living. The building is organized in an urban way as a hierarchy of spaces from the private bedroom to the collective “house”, to the neighbourhood “street,” and finally to the Town Hall for the whole community.

Visit the Secret Santa Portal at www.homesfirst.on.ca/secretsanta.

For further information, contact: Gabriella Micallef, Executive Director Homes First Foundation at 416.395.0946

Registered Canadian Charitable Registration No. 86584 3932 RR 0001