On The Way Home

This week, I’m joined on the podcast by Professor Shauna MacKinnon, who leads the Social Housing and Human Rights Coalition. We discuss how the coalition came to be, what social housing is exactly, and why it is critical more than ever to help end the affordable housing crisis.

This week Jesse Donaldson from HelpSeeker and Michael Jacek from AMO join us on the pod to discuss the explosive new data in the “Municipalities Under Pressure: The Growing Human and Financial Cost of Ontario’s Homelessness Crisis” report from AMO. We discuss what they found(80,000 people experiencing homelessness in Ontario), what could happen if serious action is taken(grow to 300,000 experiencing homelessness in the next 10 years), and much, much, more. It’s one pod you won’t want to miss.

This week I’m joined by Jacob Gorenkoff, Maggie Rodrigues, and Kyle Fox to discuss Ontario’s Provincial election and what it means to housing and homelessness going forward. We chat about each party’s platforms in regards to housing and homelessness, where the current government has got it right and wrong, and what their hopes are coming out of the election moving forward. It’s a don’t miss pod this week!

This week on the pod we meet with Ray and Mel from CHRA to talk all about the upcoming Congress happening in Saskatoon. They share information about the speakers, presenters, amazing tours, and cool events that will make this year’s Congress one of the best ever.

This week we have a panel of guests including Diana Chan McNally, Jeff Schlemmer, and Annie Hodgins to chat about the recent actions of some Ontario Mayors and the Premier of Ontario, looking to use force and punishment to clear growing encampments, and threatening use of the notwithstanding clause. We chat about how this all came about, what it means, why it won’t work, and what has worked in the past.

This week we sit down with Bill Rowlands-, Head of End Youth Homelessness Cymru to chat about the work they are doing to prevent youth homelessness. We talk about some cool peer led research around neurodiversity and youth homelessness, their newly launched podcast and a very interesting new tool they’ve borrowed from the U.S called YEXLS, Youth Justice Simulation.

This week Michael sits down with Ruth Crammond, VP of Community Infrastructure, and Stefphon Nibs, Director of Community Infrastructure at the United Way of the GTA to talk about their new initiative around Community Real Estate. In the discussion, we talk about how it came about, what it's all about, and the hopes for the future.

This week Michael sits down with Sahar Raza, Vice President of Research and Advocacy at Daily Bread Food Bank, and Richard Martern, Director of Research at Food Banks Canada, to talk about the massive growth in food insecurity across the country due to the growing decline in affordability. We chat about what the research is showing them, what has to change for the usage of food banks to slow or stop, and the role of affordable housing plays in decreasing food insecurity.

This week on the pod I sit down with Pedro Barata, newly crowned CEO of Habitat for Humanity Canada for a chat. We talk about his journey into this work, the work of Habitat for Humanity Canada, their 3rd Annual Affordable Housing Survey, and the adjustments Habitats across the country are making with the cost of housing continuing to rise.