Keep Moving

In this episode of Keep Moving, we have a conversation with Jessy Cook. Jessy was a camp Pekiwewin organizer and security volunteer. He is an Indigenous man with family ties to the Cree Community in Cross Lake Manitoba. Jessy was born in Edmonton and raised in Winnipeg. He is currently federally incarcerated and has lived experience with addiction and houselessness.

Jessy is a strong advocate for, and contributor to, community care, mutual aid, and ensuring incarcerated people have their voices heard. In this conversation, Jessy talks about visible Indigeneity, intersections of incarceration, addiction, and houselessness. He also discusses maintaining connection with a parent experiencing chronic houselessness, concepts of non-police based safety, and finding and fostering joy through experiences of hardship and trauma.

Keep Moving is a podcast about life in the beautiful Beaver Hills, houseless encampments, Pekiwewin, and much more. This episode of Keep Moving originally aired live on CJSR 88.5FM on Monday, February 10, 2025.

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/keepmovingpodcast⁠

Instagram: ⁠@KeepMovingPodcast⁠

In this episode of Keep Moving, we discuss how to best check-in with your unhoused neighbours in cold winter weather. We also talk about Edmonton's proposed Public Spaces Bylaw, which is going to the Community and Public Services Committee on February 10, 2025, fire safety in encampments, and how seemingly compassionate approaches to encampments can still heighten harms for encampment residents.

Learn more about the Public Spaces Bylaw, and what you can do about it, here.

Keep Moving is a podcast about life in the beautiful Beaver Hills, houseless encampments, Pekiwewin, and much more. This episode of Keep Moving originally aired live on CJSR 88.5FM on Monday, February 3, 2025.

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/keepmovingpodcast⁠

Instagram: ⁠@KeepMovingPodcast⁠

In this episode of Keep Moving, we talk with Katy Ingraham about the Edmonton Police Commission and the Public Spaces Bylaw.

It’s important to consider the role of the Edmonton Police Commission in overseeing policing policies in our city, and the role of ordinances set to regulate the use of public space. The number of encampment evictions in the city has been steadily increasing since 2016, the year Rogers Place arena opened downtown, as part of a sport-related gentrification scheme in Edmonton’s city-centre. As research shows around the continent, gentrification often comes with displacement and banishment of pre-existing residents. And even in instances where more so-called compassionate or benevolent practices are used, the end result is the same: encampment evictions, and the visibility of homelessness managed by municipal governments, leads to heightened risks of harm for unhoused residents.  

Across the continent, municipal and police responses to encampments are often based on assumptions that encampments decrease safety and increase crime. It is important, however, to consider evidence-based research on the policing of encampment evictions. Because rigorous research, including research involving police perspectives, largely shows the opposite. Similar to where safer consumption sites are located, only does crime not increase in areas with encampments, but in some cases it even goes down. And locally, Edmonton Police Service officers involved in research studies on encampment evictions say these evictions don’t work. This mirrors the wider research findings on encampments: Encampment evictions, researchers have noted, are socially, physically, and psychologically harmful. Evidence-based research should guide our city’s leadership, not misguided, ideological assumptions. 

Keep Moving is a podcast about life in the beautiful Beaver Hills, houseless encampments, Pekiwewin, and much more. This episode of Keep Moving originally aired live on CJSR 88.5FM on Monday, January 13, 2025. It was rebroadcast with updates on Monday, January 20, 2025.

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/keepmovingpodcast⁠

Instagram: ⁠@KeepMovingPodcast⁠

Shima Aisha Robinson was Pekiwewin's media liaison. She is also Edmonton's 10th Poet Laureate. She's a community builder, a spoken-word artist, and a friend. Shima joins this episode of Keep Moving to talk about her role at Pekiwewin and daily life at the encampment. She also discusses engaging with the world through an activist lens, and the importance of storytelling, relationship building, and community care.

Keep Moving is a podcast about life in the beautiful Beaver Hills, houseless encampments, Pekiwewin, and much more. This episode of Keep Moving originally aired live on CJSR 88.5FM on Monday, November 25, 2024.

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/keepmovingpodcast⁠

Instagram: ⁠@KeepMovingPodcast⁠

Winter is returning to Edmonton, a hostile settler city where the majority of the houseless community is Indigenous. In 2023, 421 Edmontonians died of issues related to houselessness. This almost doubled the previously unprecedented 222 deaths in 2021. Now in 2024, the number of houseless Edmontonians has increased by at least 47%. Frostbite amputations have reached a new high. And more life-saving programs have been defunded. Amidst the unprecedented number of amputations and deaths, the City of Edmonton and its police force continues its aggressive encampment eviction policy. In response, calls to action by a coalition of ten advocacy groups includes an end to the harms of encampment evictions and the refunding of life-saving programs. 

In this episode of Keep Moving, we talk with Rachelle, Bryce, and Mikayla from Tawâw Outreach Collective. We discuss how to support our unhoused neighbours this winter. We also talk about the consequences of encampment evictions, the benefits of harm reduction through an Indigenous lens, and what you can do to take care of yourself and others doing mutual aid work. 

Keep Moving is a podcast about life in the beautiful Beaver Hills, houseless encampments, Pekiwewin, and much more. This episode of Keep Moving originally aired live on CJSR 88.5FM on Monday, October 21, 2024.

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/keepmovingpodcast⁠

Instagram: ⁠@KeepMovingPodcast⁠

This episode of Keep Moving is an interview with Chris Weibe, a lawyer from Engel Law Office and co-counsel for the Coalition for Justice and Human Rights (CJHR). Chris discusses the CJHR, the No Fixed Address report, the erosion of trust in the settler-state and its institutions including the police, and how encampment evictions cause harmful relational disconnections.

Keep Moving is a podcast on houseless encampments in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (Nêhiyawak/Cree for Beaver Hills). Colonially known as Edmonton, it is a hostile settler city. Since the onset of COVID-19, it is even more hostile.

This episode of Keep Moving originally aired live on CJSR 88.5FM on Monday June 17, 2024.

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/keepmovingpodcast⁠

Instagram: ⁠@KeepMovingPodcast⁠

In this episode, we speak to Noor and Simon, two of the student organizers of ⁠The People’s University for Palestine⁠, and members of ⁠SJP UAlberta⁠.  

On May 9, 2024 at 5AM, students, faculty, and community members set up an encampment  at the University of Alberta’s main quad. The People’s University for Palestine encampment was erected in solidarity with the Palestinian peoples facing a genocide perpetuated by Israel.

Community assembled to call out the University of Alberta for their complicity in the genocide. The encampment had four key demands: disclose, divest, defend and declare. For two days, the camp was not just what the university called a “disruptive protest”, but it doubled as a generative site of learning, visiting, sharing and more.

On May 11, 2024 at 4:30AM, baton-wielding police officers from the Public Safety Unity stormed the camp with pepper spray and what seemed to be tear gas. Two people were arrested, four people sustained injuries, and one required hospitalization.

This episode of Keep Moving originally aired live on CJSR 88.5FM on Monday May 13, 2024.

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/keepmovingpodcast⁠

Instagram: ⁠@KeepMovingPodcast⁠

This episode of Keep Moving is an interview with Robbie, the police liaison at Pekiwewin (Nêhiyawak/Cree for the act of coming home).

Keep Moving is a podcast on houseless encampments in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (Nêhiyawak/Cree for Beaver Hills). Colonially known as Edmonton, it is a hostile settler city. Since the onset of COVID-19, it is even more hostile.

This episode of Keep Moving originally aired on CJSR 88.5FM on Monday May 6, 2024.

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/keepmovingpodcast⁠

Instagram: ⁠@KeepMovingPodcast⁠

This episode of Keep Moving is an interview with a community outreach nurse who helped at Pekiwewin (Nêhiyawak/Cree for the act of coming home), and continues to support unhoused residents today.

Keep Moving is a podcast on houseless encampments in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (Nêhiyawak/Cree for Beaver Hills). Colonially known as Edmonton, it is a hostile settler city. Since the onset of COVID-19, it is even more hostile.

This episode of Keep Moving originally aired on CJSR 88.5FM on Monday March 18, 2024.

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/keepmovingpodcast⁠

Instagram: ⁠@KeepMovingPodcast⁠

This episode of Keep Moving was originally released in March 2020. Intended as an introductory episode to a series on houselessness, leisure, and gentrification, further episodes were halted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Four years later, airing the episode helps situate the current situation in the wider context of neoliberal governance, large-scale sport-related gentrification, and ongoing encampment evictions and the policing of houseless Edmontonians.

All music in this episode is used with permission.

Keep Moving is a podcast on houseless encampments in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (Nêhiyawak/Cree for Beaver Hills). Colonially known as Edmonton, it is a hostile settler city. Since the onset of COVID-19, it is even more hostile.

This episode of Keep Moving originally aired on CJSR 88.5FM on Monday March 11, 2024.

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/keepmovingpodcast⁠

Instagram: ⁠@KeepMovingPodcast⁠