CSH’s signature Speak UP! initiative is designed to build community support for supportive and affordable housing and for individuals with lived experience of homelessness. CSH’s Speak UP! initiative is a year-long curriculum of workshops, individual coaching sessions with volunteers from performance art and public speaking backgrounds, designed to build the skills of individuals with lived experience, or “Advocates”. In demonstrating to Advocates that they not only have lived experience, but lived expertise, we will help them to embrace their power, reframe their experiences as stories of strength and overcoming adversity, and work directly towards a more just and equitable society.