Jodie is a familiar face on The Block, where she has worked in various roles supporting people dealing with the same hard life she experienced as a child, homeless on the streets of Calgary. Jodie was just 13 when she fell into homeless. She was on the streets for five years before moving to Victoria, and it would be another 14 years before she found her way to her own recovery journey. While Jodie has gone on to get the kind of education and training that employers want for the work she does, it’s lived experience that brings a whole other level of expertise for people doing this work. That expertise has been valued for many years by non-profit organizations, and is now increasingly sought out by government in their own hiring related to homelessness and substance use. It matters.