Lived experience is expertise
The people closest to a problem understand it best, so they belong at the table from the first meeting.
§ 02 — The featureP. 02
From the shelter system to the stage.
Joél Zola is a Toronto-based social entrepreneur, public speaker, programmer and consultant, and the founder and executive director of Street Voices.
§ 02.1 — The story so farNine chapters
Built from nothing.
Joél didn’t wait for a platform. He printed one, then spent more than a decade turning it into a home for other people’s stories.
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CalgaryChapter 01
Leaving home
Joél was 13 the first time he was kicked out of his family’s home in Calgary. By 15 he had dropped out of school and was on his own.
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7 yearsChapter 02
City to city, shelter to shelter
For the next seven years he moved between cities and shelters — Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver — before settling in Toronto.
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TorontoChapter 03
Finding a voice
In Toronto he stayed at Covenant House, found support at the Evergreen Centre for Street Youth and Sketch, and lived at Eva’s Phoenix. Along the way he discovered a passion for poetry and media.
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2012Chapter 04
A pamphlet becomes a platform
Eva’s Phoenix had a print shop. Joél used it to publish a collection of his poetry as a pamphlet, and that pamphlet was the beginning of Street Voices.
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2014Chapter 05
Issue one
Street Voices magazine launched on June 11, 2014, with a first run of 500 copies, most of them sold or handed out in Toronto’s shelters. Joél published five issues while he was still homeless.
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2018Chapter 06
On CBC
CBC Toronto’s Start-Up City series told the story of the man who started a magazine while living in a Toronto homeless shelter.
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2021Chapter 07
Help, one search away
Street Voices launched a directory of free programs and services across the Greater Toronto Area, from shelters and food to health, legal help and employment.
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2023Chapter 08
Recognized for the directory
The Ontario Black History Society honoured Joél and the Street Voices Directory with its UN International Decade for People of African Descent Award, for creating a platform to help marginalized people rise up.
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2025Chapter 09
Honoured
Street Voices received the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Community Arts Award, and Joél received the LEGUP Youth Entrepreneurship Award.
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TodayChapter 10
Training the next storytellers
Street Voices runs free media training for emerging storytellers — podcasting, photojournalism, videography and networking — with partners including Toronto Public Library.
§ 02.2 — What drives himP. 03
Four things
he won’t trade.
Own the narrative
When communities tell their own stories, the story changes. Media skills are a form of power.
Build the thing
Ideas matter when they ship. From a printed pamphlet to a city-wide directory, he builds what’s missing.
Access is everything
Talent is everywhere; opportunity isn’t. Every project starts by removing a barrier.
§ 02.3 — In his wordsP. 04
I’m an artist who wants to get my voice out there.
§ 02.4 — In the roomP. 05
NextP. 06