Futureproofing Canada

In this episode of Demystifying Community Housing, co-hosts Hanan Ali and Natasha Mhuriro speak with Rebecca Schiff, dean of the Faculty of Human Health Sciences at the University of Northern British Columbia; Ray Sullivan, executive director of the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association; and David Hulchanski, a professor in the Faculty of Social Work and the Graduate Program in Planning in the Department of Geography at the University of Toronto. Together they discuss what community housing means, who it serves or should serve, and how to pave the path forward for resilient community housing.

SHOW NOTES

The production of the podcast series is led by Dr. Yushu Zhu and Dr. Meg Holden at Simon Fraser University as part of the Community Housing Canada project and the Housing Inequality in Canada project, in partnership with IRPP. Student researchers include Hanan Ali, Natasha Mhuriro, Pok Man Tong, and Khoa Vo. This podcast has received production support and assistance from Cléa Desjardins, Ricardo Montrose and Luc Moulaison at IRPP, and audio producer Jackie G. If you like what you heard and you want to know more about the Institute for Research on Public Policy, head over to https://irpp.org/.

Additional resources:

Where Are All My Relations? Stories of Indigenous Homelessness in B.C. is an eleven-episode series that explores Indigenous homelessness rooted in Indigenous worldviews and experiences. The documentary can be viewed via Indigenous-led Solutions to Indigenous Homelessness — Lu’ma Group of Companies (lnhs.ca). This film was funded by the Province of BC. The videos were produced by Little Bird Media, an Indigenous-led firm based in Vernon, B.C., including Lu’ma Native Housing Society. The project was stewarded by leaders from various Indigenous organizations. The documentary is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND license.

PUSH (2019), a documentary film investigating housing financialization

Housing Assessment Resource Tools (HART) at the University of British Columbia

Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC) at McMaster University

At Home in the North, partnership project for Northern housing security and homes

Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership based at the University of Toronto

Canadian Housing Renewal Association (CHRA) Economic Study: The Impact of Community Housing on Productivity

Hey Neighbour Collective (HNC) on community-building, social connectedness, and resilience in B.C.’s multi-unit housing communities.

Funding:

This podcast series receives funding from the Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant for The Community Housing project [430-2021-00887] and the Insight Development Grant for the Housing Inequality project [890-2018-1013].

Welcome to Demystifying Community Housing, a special series from the IRPP’s Policy Options Podcast, which explores the different facets of community housing and its role in addressing Canada’s housing crisis.

In this episode, we speak with Yushu Zhu and Meg Holden, professors of urban studies at Simon Fraser University, who are leading the production of this podcast series. Together we talk about their research on community housing, the reason they worked on this podcast and what listeners can expect.

SHOW NOTES

The production of the podcast series is led by Dr. Yushu Zhu and Dr. Meg Holden at Simon Fraser University as part of the Community Housing Canada project and the Housing Inequality in Canada project, with support from IRPP. Student researchers include Hanan Ali, Natasha Mhuriro, Pok Man Tong, and Khoa Vo. This podcast has been a dedicated collaboration, with production assistance by Cléa Desjardins, Ricardo Montrose, and Luc Moulaison at IRPP, and audio producer Jackie G. If you like what you heard and you want to know more about the Institute for Research on Public Policy, head over to https://irpp.org/.

Additional resources:

Community Housing Canada – Partners in Resilience: A research-practice partnership project aimed at increasing the sustainability and resiliency of the community housing sector. It is part of an independent, Canada-wide collaboration of academics and community partners: The Collaborative Housing Research Network (CHRN).

The neighbor spectrum in community housing: Pro-social, anti-social and asocial neighboring in Vancouver (Holden et al., 2024): This journal article presents focus group research with community housing residents in Vancouver, Canada, investigating the role, activities, and importance of neighboring to these individuals living in vulnerable situations. A commentary based on this research is published The Conversation: Higher density living is changing the way neighbouring works in Canada.

Housing vulnerability and well-being in the COVID-19 pandemic (Zhu et al., 2022): Drawing on a representative sample survey of B.C. adult residents, this report examines different aspects of housing situations and factors that may increase housing vulnerability or resilience during the pandemic.

Housing Vulnerability Reconsidered: Applications and Implications for Housing Research, Policy and Practice (Zhu et al., 2024): A special issue published at Housing, Theory and Society (academic journal). This issue presents research into what housing vulnerability means in different world regions, what structures and systems may be driving it, and the variety of experiences of housing vulnerability.

Funding:

This podcast series receives funding from the Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant for The Community Housing project [430-2021-00887] and the Insight Development Grant for the Housing Inequality project [890-2018-1013].

PO Podcast 167 - Addressing Ecological Risks (Institutions for Effective Climate Action conference) by IRPP

PO Podcast 166 - Climate Change in the North by IRPP

It is undeniable that poverty and income inequality are two of Canada’s most pressing issues. But it is less clear what policy solutions need to be enacted to address these problems.

In response to these challenges, some policy practitioners have called for the implementation of an unconditional Basic Income that would be accessible to all Canadians. Bill S-233, An Act to develop a national framework for a guaranteed livable basic income, is a clear example of this response. Proponents of a Basic Income present the policy framework as a simple and direct response to poverty, on the grounds that sending people a cheque through the tax system seems efficient.

However, a host of researchers have called into question the underlying assumptions about the causes of poverty that proponents of a basic income take for granted. For instance, is basic income the best tool to achieve a just society? Could other social policies be put in place to achieve the desired outcome more holistically and efficiently? The book Basic Income and a Just Society, published last year by the IRPP, takes such an approach.

This conversation between IRPP CEO and President Jennifer Ditchburn and Senator Kim Pate – a sponsor of Bill S-233 – tackles these questions, which have been at the centre of the IRPP’s and Senator Pate’s work for years.

Affordability and climate are compounding, overlapping crises — and people are struggling through them both at the same time. Individuals across Canada are tired of making trade-offs because, when it comes to life’s necessities — housing, food, transportation and a sustainable climate — there should be none.

Solutions that ignore the full picture are no longer acceptable. What’s needed now is a fundamentally different approach to policymaking, one that considers all basic needs because they are all interdependent. The Affordability Action Council (AAC), a collaboration of diverse policy and community leaders, has broken down silos to table a package of “all-in” solutions to help meet Canadians’ basic needs in an integrated way.

On Thursday, February 1, we held a panel discussion featuring three AAC members who explored the group’s main areas of focus — food, transportation and housing — and explained how a holistic approach to policymaking can lead to solutions that lower cost, reduce vulnerability and give people greater control over their lives. The event took place at the Impact Hub in Ottawa and was also live streamed. This podcast is the audio from that discussion.

To move beyond this long legacy, federal and provincial governments need to focus on educating Canadians about Black history.

En se privant d’un milliard cette année pour défendre sa compétence en santé, le Québec se retrouve une fois de plus dans le rôle de gardien du fédéralisme.

Without additional funds, the move could lead to reduced course choice and the replacement of specialists with French teachers, harming the quality of education.

Social inequalities have shown no sign of receding in Canada or worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the persistence of deep-seated inequalities along racialized and gendered lines. Meanwhile, the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement for racial justice has called into question the weight that power and privilege continue to hold in our society.

Although policymakers continue to attempt to address the many dimensions of inequality, economic, racial and gendered disparities remain. Worse yet, public policy decisions have, in many cases, been complicit in the perpetuation of social inequalities.

This in-person conversation between Debra Thompson, associate professor of political science at McGill University and the host of the IRPP’s In/Equality podcast, and Joe Soss, the Cowles Chair for the Study of Public Service at the University of Minnesota, addressed these concerns head-on, considering the intersection of public policy and social inequality.