Developmental Evaluator of ARCH Sites 2

Buyer ID: Infrastructure Canada
Solicitation No.: INFC 2023-2024 - PS4905 – Developmental Evaluator of ARCH Sites 2
Contracting Authority: Jennifer Hendrick
E-mail Address: procurement-approvisionnement@infc.gc.ca

The following suppliers have been invited from the list of pre-qualified Suppliers against
TSPS E60ZT-16TSSB series of SAs to compete:
1. Avascent Canada ULC
2. Bell Browne Molnar and Delicate Consulting Inc.
3. Blue Water Sourcing Inc.
4. Cathexis Consulting Inc.
5. Ference & Company Consulting Ltd.
6. Fujitsu Consulting (CANADA( Inc./Fujitsu Conseil (Canada) Inc.
7. Goss Gilroy Inc.
8. InterVISTAS Consulting Inc.
9. IT/Net – Ottawa Inc.
10. Kelly Sears Consulting Group
11. Nattiq Inc. Vision XRMInc. XRM Vision Inc., In Joint Venture
12. Nattiq Inc.
13. PRA Inc.
14. RESEAU CIRCUM INC.
15. The Social Research and Demonstration Corporation
16. R A Malatest and Associates LTD
17. Deloitte

DESCRIPTION OF REQUIREMENT:

Developmental evaluation to support communities participating in Infrastructure Canada’s Action Research on Chronic Homelessness (ARCH) initiative.

Infrastructure Canada (INFC) requires two (2) Developmental Evaluators or Developmental Evaluation Project Teams (collectively referred to as DEs) to support two (2) communities participating in the Action Research on Chronic Homelessness (ARCH) Initiative. In theory, there would be one contract per ARCH site for two (2) years, however, if a bidder can support more than one ARCH site with a distinct DE for each site, then the number of contracts could be less than two (2).

The ARCH initiative seeks to:
 Identify and document persistent barriers encountered by communities to preventing and reducing chronic homelessness; and,
 Test potential approaches to address persistent barriers and document successes and challenges
to preventing and reducing chronic homelessness.

This Request for Proposal (RFP) is to establish up to two (2) contracts for two (2) sites across Canada,
including one geographic area subject to Comprehensive Land Claims Agreements (CLCAs). The original RFP made all the necessary steps to include the CLCAs and encourage Indigenous Firms through PSIB. We received zero (0) bids from a CLCA and one bid from an Indigenous firm. INFC will not be resubmitting this revised solicitation to CLCAs.

To meet the Government of Canada’s objectives of encouraging Indigenous socio-economic development through federally funded opportunities, resulting bid solicitations from this RFP may be set aside under the Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business (PSIB), for more information on PSIB refer to Indigenous business and federal procurement (isc-sac.gc.ca).

Homelessness describes the situation of an individual, family or community without stable, safe,
permanent, appropriate housing, or the immediate prospect, means and ability of acquiring it. It is the result of systemic or societal barriers, a lack of affordable and appropriate housing, the individual/household’s financial, mental, cognitive, behavioural or physical challenges, and/or racism and discrimination.

Homelessness is a shared responsibility involving many orders of government, the not-for-profit sector and the private sector. As people experiencing homelessness interact with numerous service systems, coordinated strategies are needed to address homelessness.

Through initiatives under the National Housing Strategy, including Reaching Home: Canada’s
Homelessness Strategy, the Government of Canada has been working with communities across the
country to reduce chronic homelessness by 50% by 2027-2028. Building on all the work done to date, and recognizing the need to do more, the Government of Canada has taken a step further and has committed to working with partners to end chronic homelessness in Canada by 2030.

Reaching Home supports communities across Canada in tackling chronic homelessness, in part, through its requirements for communities to develop outcomes-based approaches to address homelessness and implementing coordinated service delivery. Recognizing that communities experience persistent barriers in addressing chronic homelessness even after implementing Reaching Home minimum requirements, Budget 2022 invested $18 million over three years to conduct research about further measures that could contribute to eliminating chronic homelessness.

ARCH will help inform the development of a broader strategy to eliminate chronic homelessness in Canada and contribute to broad scale learning. The ARCH initiative seeks to:
 Identify and document persistent barriers encountered by communities to preventing and reducing chronic homelessness; and,
 Test potential approaches to address persistent barriers and document successes and challenges
to preventing and reducing chronic homelessness.

ARCH has been designed to emphasize the Government of Canada’s commitments to ending chronic
homelessness while respecting the ARCH site’s expertise in identifying approaches that are aligned with their specific priorities to ensure scalability of any promising practices. INFC will work with each ARCH site to co-develop a project that is expected to run for two (2) years. ARCH projects will broadly focus on one of three areas of study, outlined below, through specific tailored approaches:
 Collaboration: explore approaches to addressing chronic homelessness through enhanced
collaboration across sectors and orders of government, including having relevant actors work
together towards a joint plan-of-action;
 System alignment: explore strategies to improve systems-level alignment or to support effective
intersectional prioritization of people experiencing or at-risk of chronic homelessness; and,
 Data: identify opportunities to improve data literacy at the community level; explore solutions to
address concerns related to data ownership and sharing.

Two cities have been selected as ARCH Sites, each of which have an existing funding relationship to
Reaching Home.

As these projects are community led, the ARCH Sites will hire a Project Lead to design and implement the projects. The Project Lead will be responsible for the overall management of the project and will be the DE’s main point of contact throughout the developmental evaluation.

To support widespread learning, INFC will also hire a Summative Researcher (SR) to provide Indigenous research expertise and conduct an overarching assessment of the ARCH initiative’s finding.

Recognizing Indigenous peoples are over-represented among those experiencing homelessness, including in unsheltered populations, each ARCH research project is expected to be developed and delivered in partnership with local Indigenous partner organizations. This is also consistent with the Government of Canada’s commitment to responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action and has adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as their framework for reconciliation.

The full scope of the DE role will be determined during the co-development phase of each ARCH research project. The DE will be imbedded into the ARCH research team and will support the project by fostering learning, innovation, and adaptation. This will be achieved through the creation and implementation of a developmental evaluation framework that uses continuous and iterative evaluation cycles to document, monitor, assess, and provide recommendations on the development and implementation of the ARCH project.

The overall purpose of each DE will be to support ARCH Sites by conducting ongoing evaluations of the research project. This will be done through continuous cycles of identifying, documenting, and testing solutions to barriers communities face to end chronic homelessness.

At minimum, the DE will be expected to:
 Provide expertise on developmental evaluation and build it into the design, development, and
implementation of the ARCH research project.
 Work collaboratively with INFC, ARCH Site Project Lead (Project Lead), Indigenous organizations,
and other stakeholders to identify common expectations and communication protocols, build and
update the developmental evaluation, framework and assessment tools.
 Work with the ARCH Summative Researcher (SR) to ensure that the developmental evaluation
framework considers and includes best practices for conducting Indigenous research.
 Collect, gather, and analyze project information from the ARCH Site in accordance with the
developmental evaluation framework.
 Identify and assess the progress, challenges, and effectiveness of the ARCH research project in
achieving project goals to facilitate learning and enable timely project and program adaptation
through the development of actionable recommendations.
 Validate, track, and assess intended and unintended results in order to inform the
program’s strategic direction through the development of actionable recommendations.
 Provide rapid and real-time recommendations and advice to the Project Lead by continuously
evaluating the research project progress, challenges, effectiveness and tracking expected and
unexpected results.
 Share developmental evaluation findings and recommendations with the Project Lead, INFC,
and/or the SR, using a participatory approach that is iterative and allows community members and
project lead time to make changes and improvements.

The DE will have:
 significant experience leading the design and implementation of development evaluations for social projects;
 a strong understanding and experience employing developmental evaluation approaches,
methodologies, tools, and outputs;
 prior experience providing strategic guidance on and assessing the value and impacts of social
programs;
 experience in analyzing and evaluating program performance to prepare documents such as
briefing materials, reports and recommendations;
 strong analytical, writing and reporting skills, as well as the ability to translate large volumes of
information into comprehensive, user-friendly, and visually accessible outputs;
 completion of recent Indigenous cultural competency training (within 2 years) that provides a strong understanding of the Federal government’s commitment to Reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and familiarity with the findings of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. DEs that have not taken cultural competency training can meet this requirement by demonstrating significant work experience with Indigenous communities or by committing to take sufficient cultural competency training within three (3) months of signing the contract.
 experience working with Indigenous communities, the homelessness sector, or municipalities is an
asset but not required;
 expertise in conducting culturally appropriate research with Indigenous organizations and engaging with community partners in the interpretation and analysis of findings in the context of cultural norms and traditional knowledge is an asset but not required;
 fluency in written and spoken English is required.

The full scope of the DE will be determined and refined during the co-development process with project participants, which could include but would not be limited to the Project Lead, ARCH site, Indigenous partners, provincial and territorial governments, federal government and others as applicable to refine evaluation questions, and begin development of a work plan, establish common expectations and communication protocols.

The DE will be required to travel at least once to the ARCH site.

DURATION OF CONTRACT

The period of any resulting contract will be from contract award date for a two (2) year period.

EVALUATION PROCESS AND SELECTION METHODOLOGY

Highest Combined Rating of Technical Merit (80%) and Price (20%), including travel costs for the Summative Researcher.

SECURITY REQUIREMENTS

Common SRCL# 9: Reliability Status.