Pan Canadian Voice for Women's Housing - SheTheyUs

In this final episode we will look at the most powerful tool we have to make room for women and gender-diverse people in housing in Canada, and how you can find it and use it.

Over the past six episodes we’ve heard about how much harder it is for women and gender-diverse people to find safe, affordable and appropriate housing. In the last two episodes of this series we will be looking at solutions that specifically acknowledge these challenges and show how women across the country have been mobilizing their resources to create change.

You can’t talk about women, gender-diverse people and housing without talking about gender-based violence. But you also can’t talk about violence without talking about solutions for safe and affordable housing for survivors. We’ll talk to Cindy Chiasson from Betty’s Haven in the Yukon and Michaela Mayer at the Canadian Centre for Women’s Empowerment, learn about the experiences of newcomers facing intimate partner violence from Sara Eftekar and hear from Syreeta Moore about what it is like to have to make the choice between violence and poverty.

Trans women experience high levels of both poverty and violence, two of the biggest factors in determining whether you are likely to be in housing crisis. Trans and housing rights activist Susan Gapka shares her story of the long road she’s had to take to find a safe place to call home, even as she won protections and rights for others, and we’ll hear from Aaron Munro about how women’s organizations can provide safer spaces for trans women.

Gender-diverse people in Canada face discrimination in many aspects of their lives and this all collides in a housing crisis in difficult and often dangerous situations. We will talk to Aaron Munro, a counselor and housing advocate for trans, gender-diverse and two-spirit people, and hear from Avery Shannon about what it’s been like for them to navigate a world still coming to grips with gender diversity during a housing crisis.

If it’s hard for governments to see the experiences of women in the housing crisis, it's harder still for them to see the challenges women with intersectional identities have to deal with. We will talk to Alina Mackay and Victoria Barclay on the Finding Rooms for Families research project, and hear from Lori Deets and Khristine Cariño about their experiences.

For renters the housing crisis has been hard, and for women who rent it’s been harder still. We’ll hear from Hilary Chappel and Heather Hanninen Fairbairn about their experiences trying to hold on to housing and stay in your community when you’re on a fixed income and the rents keep going up.

When you think about the housing crisis what’s the image that comes to mind and who is in that image? We’ve been spending a lot of time in Canada talking about a housing crisis over the past few years but not a lot of time talking about what that means, or who it's really impacting. In episode 1 we unpack who is losing in the housing crisis, the surprising winners and why you should care.

Welcome to SheTheyUs, a podcast about making room in housing for women and gender-diverse people brought to you by the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing. Join host Andrea Reimer to hear about why Canada’s housing crisis is hitting households led by women and gender-diverse people harder and what you can do about it.