THIS EPISODE WAS FUNDED BY THE BRANT COMMUNITY FOUNDATION. A brand new report on a groundbreaking survey completed by the Women's National Housing and Homelessness Network sheds new light on housing and homelessness in Canada as a gendered experience for women and gender diverse people. Network Co-Chair Kaitlin Schwan joins Avery to dive deep into the research and break down the 10 Key Findings that have changed the conversation on women's homelessness in Canada. A link to the "The Pan-Canadian Women's Homelessness and Housing Survey" is available in the show notes, or at womenshomeslessness.ca.
Please find a full transcript of this episode below.
To read the full report "The Pan-Canadian Women's Homelessness and Housing Survey" in English, or in French.
For more about the Women's National Housing and Homelessness Network visit: www.womenshomeslessness.ca
About our guests in this episode:
KAITLIN SCHWAN IS CO-CHAIR OF THE WOMEN’S NATIONAL HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS NETWORK, AND DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH FOR THE SHIFT. KAITLIN TEACHES SOCIAL POLICY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO’S FACULTY OF SOCIAL WORK, WHERE SHE IS APPOINTED ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, STATUS ONLY. SHE IS ALSO A SENIOR RESEARCHER AT THE CANADIAN OBSERVATORY ON HOMELESSNESS (YORK UNIVERSITY).
HANNAH BRAIS IS A MEMBER OF THE WOMEN’S NATIONAL HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS NETWORK, AND IS THE CO-CHAIR OF THE POLICY AND GOVERNMENT RELATIONS WORKING GROUP. HANNAH IS THE RESEARCH COORDINATOR AT THE OLD BREWERY MISSION, A LARGE HOMELESS SERVICE PROVIDER IN QUEBEC.
KHULUD BAIG IS THE HOUSING RESEARCHER AND POLICY ADVISOR FOR WOMEN’S NATIONAL HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS NETWORK. SHE IS THE AUTHOR ON A NATIONAL LITERATURE REVIEW ON WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE’S HOUSING NEEDS IN CANADA.
ALEX NELSON IS A PHD CANDIDATE AT WESTERN UNIVERSITY IN ANTHROPOLOGY. THEY SIT ON THE STEERING COMMITTEE OF THE WOMEN’S NATIONAL HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS NETWORK, AND THE STEERING COMMITTEE OF THE CANADIAN LIVED EXPERIENCE LEADERSHIP NETWORK.
Contributors to this episode's production:
Host and Producer: Avery Moore Kloss, Folktale Studio
Website | Instagram | Email her at hello@averymoorekloss.com
Executive Producers: Kaitlin Schwan, Erin Dej, Carrie Sanders
Find Erin Dej's book "A Complex Exile: Homelessness and Social Exclusion in Canada" now at UBC Press or on Amazon.
Support and Funding for this episode:
Brant Community Foundation
Full Episode Transcript:
AVERY: WELCOME BACK TO CRSP TALK. I’M AVERY MOORE KLOSS AND THIS IS A PODCAST FROM THE CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON SECURITY PRACTICES AT WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY.
ON THIS PODCAST WE DIVE DEEP INTO THE RESEARCH PROJECTS OUR MEMBERS AND THEIR COLLEAGUES ARE DOING, AND WE TELL THE STORY OF THE THAT RESEARCH. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? HOW IS IT BEING DONE? WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM IT? AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
TODAY, SOMETHING DIFFERENT. WE CALLED ON CRSP MEMBER ERIN DEJ TO LEAD THIS EPISODE, AND INSTEAD ERIN DECIDED SHE WANTED US TO SHIFT OUR FOCUS TO A GROUNDBREAKING SURVEY BEING DONE BY THE WOMEN’S NATIONAL HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS NETWORK. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO TODAY.
A NOTE BEFORE WE START THAT ERIN DEJ’S BOOK A Complex Exile: Homelessness and Social Exclusion in Canada IS A MUST READ AND IT’S OUT NOW FROM UBC PRESS.
SO -- WE ARE DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY TODAY. BECAUSE TODAY -- WE HAVE A CO-HOST. KAITLIN, GO AHEAD AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.
KAITLIN: Hi Avery, thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be able to put podcast co-host on my resume and join you and talk about this incredible survey that we did. Just a little background on me, I am co-chair of the Women's National Housing and Homelessness Network. So that is a Canadian network focused on preventing and ending homelessness for women and for gender diverse folks across the country. I also work at an organization called The Shift, where I'm director of research and I'm a senior researcher at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. So across all my work, my goal is to kind of use research and evidence to end homelessness in Canada and work towards that around the world as well and to advance the right to housing. So just so thrilled to be here.
AVERY: WELL KAITLIN WE ARE SO HAPPY THAT YOU COULD JOIN US, THAT YOU AGREED TO CO-HOST THIS. THAT YOU AGREED TO DO THAT IS SO WONDERFUL. AND, JUST TO HAVE YOUR BIG BRAIN THAT IS FULL OF SO MUCH KNOWLEDGE ON THIS TOPIC HERE IS REALLY INVALUABLE. SO KAITLIN IS HERE TODAY BECAUSE SHE ALSO LED THE RESEARCH ON THE NEWLY RELEASED REPORT “THE PAN-CANADIAN WOMEN’S HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS SURVEY”. SO KAITLIN, THIS SURVEY IS THE FIRST OF ITS KIND. SETUP FOR US HOW IMPORTANT THIS PIECE OF RESEARCH IS.
KAITLIN: So what's very interesting and exciting about this research is it really points us to the ways in which homelessness is actually a gendered experience. So what we saw through this work is that your gender is really going to shape the pathway you take into homelessness. What your experience of it is and what the consequences is. And we're really trying to get our heads around this in the Canadian context, I think. So the purpose of this work was to do a very large national survey focused on women and gender diverse folks and trying to understand what those realities are for those groups. What we do know from previous research is that women's homelessness is very distinct and there's a bunch of reasons for this. We know that women and gender diverse folks have an increased vulnerability to housing security because of issues like pay inequity, because women are more likely to have the burden for caring for children. They're also more likely to be in deep core housing needs, so paying a lot towards their housing. And then once they do become homeless, because they experience much higher rates of violence and harassment, they're more likely to be living in situations... what we call hidden homelessness. So whether that's couch surfing or trading labour or sex for housing, that's a very specific and distinct kind of experience of homelessness compared to what in the kind of public imagination we often talk and think about the person who's kind of visible on the street, perhaps panhandling. Our survey is really trying to illuminate there are many, many women and gender diverse folks across the country who are experiencing homelessness, who are not visible in that way. And we want to understand their experiences and what policy solutions really look like.
AVERY: ABSOLUTELY, AND IT IS INTERESTING WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT THIS TOPIC -- EVEN AS A WOMAN IT DIDN’S REALLY OCCUR TO ME UNTIL I REALLY DOVE INTO THIS, HOW DIFFERENT THAT EXPERIENCE IS FOR A WOMAN OR A GENDER DIVERSE PERSON. AND SO, I’M REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO OUR AUDIENCE REALLY UNDERSTANDING WHAT YOU’VE FOUND HERE, CAUSE I THINK IT’S SO CRITICALLY IMPORTANT. I WANT TO MENTION HERE TOO, THAT WE HAD THE GREAT PLEASURE OF INTERVIEWING THREE MEMBERS OF THE WOMEN’S NATIONAL HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS NETWORK TO HELP US HIGHLIGHT PARTS OF THE FINDINGS AND TO GIVE US SOME CONTEXT AS WE DISCUSS.
KAITLIN: Yeah. Huge thanks to Khulud Baig, Hannah Brais and Alex Nelson for their help in really bringing this research to life and helping us understand what these findings mean.
AVERY: YEAH, THEY WERE SO HELPFUL IN HELPING ME, EVEN JUST ME. UNDERSTAND THE FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. I WAS SO GRATEFUL FOR THEIR HELP.
OKAY KAITLIN, I THINK IT’S REALLY IMPORTANT THAT WE TALK ABOUT METHODOLOGY FIRST. AND MAYBE I’M GEEKING OUT ON METHODOLOGY HERE, BUT I THINK THERE’S SUCH A SPECIAL PIECE TO THIS THAT WAS THE METHODOLOGY AND HOW WELL IT WAS THOUGHT OUT. BECAUSE, LIKE YOU SAID THIS IS THE FIRST TIME A SURVEY LIKE THIS HAS BEEN DONE SPECIFICALLY WITH WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE ON HOMELESSNESS AND HOUSING -- AND THE WAY IT WAS BUILT IS SO IMPORTANT. CAN YOU GIVE ME SOME BACKGROUND ON HOW THIS CAME TOGETHER?
KAITLIN: Yeah, absolutely. So probably some of your listeners will know what we do in terms of trying to enumerate or understand homelessness is often through measures like point and time counts where you have folks kind of going out onto the street and into shelters and collecting data from people who are visibly homeless. But as I mentioned, this is a population that's much more likely to be in situations of hidden homelessness. So our methodology was really trying to match the challenge of the hiddenness of homelessness for this group. The ways in which they may be touching different sectors or systems and the ways in which lived experts can really help us guide that work. So, when we were recruiting, for example, to participate in the survey, we didn't just go to homeless shelters. We partnered with 27 community agencies or organizations, including the homelessness sector, but also the violence against women sector and other social service sectors and other kind of grassroots, community based organization who can connect us with a diversity of women and gender diverse folks. And what was critical to this work, in addition to kind of the diversity of community partners, was really the central role that lived experts played kind of from start to finish in our methodology. So lived experts really drove what was in the survey. We asked the steering committee of the Women's National Housing and Homelessness Network to identify, OK, what do you... what are you curious about? What do we want to know? What is.... where is the gaps in knowledge about women and gender diverse folks' experiences of homelessness across the country?
AVERY: YEAH IT’S REALLY CLEAR TO ME THE IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING THIS SURVEY WITH THE HELP OF THOSE WITH LIVED EXPERIENCE, IT’S JUST SUCH AN IMPORTANT PIECE OF THIS PUZZLE. AND ACTUALLY THAT’S SOMETHING WE TALKED WITH HANNAH BRAIS ABOUT.
KAITLIN: Here's Hannah introducing herself with a little bit of her background in terms of her involvement.
Hannah Brais: Hi, my name is Hannah Brais and I'm a member of the Women's National Housing and Homelessness Network… I've been sitting on the steering committee for the network for a couple of years now. I'm also the co-chair for our Policy and Government Relations Working Group, as well as I'm an active member of the Research Working Group. Sort of outside of this network, I'm the research coordinator at the Old Brewery Mission, which is a large homelessness service provider in Quebec. I've been pretty present with this particular project, developing the survey, being in a lot of the consultation processes, and then eventually I was very involved in the translation of the survey, verifying the French version of the survey, and then doing a lot of the administering of the survey, particularly in French.
KAITLIN: Hannah was really critical to delivering the survey in Montreal and really reaching out to our Quebec partners in this work, and because she was involved throughout the life of the project, she's really able to speak to the importance of having scholars and community partners and lived experts kind of collaboratively involved in designing the survey and driving that process forward.
AVERY: I THOUGHT WHAT HANNAH HAD TO SAY ABOUT HER EXPERIENCE ASKING PARTICIPANTS THE SURVEY QUESTIONS REALLY EXEMPLIFIES HOW UNIQUE THIS WHOLE PROJECT IS. SO, HERE’S HANNAH.
Hannah Brais: What's really beautiful about it is, is that I was asking questions to women that they were turning around and saying, “that's such a good question, thank you for asking me that”. And it was so affirming to be able to say back to them. Yeah, because it was homeless women who thought to ask that question.
AVERY: I WANT TO BRING IN ALEX NELSON HERE. AS A PERSON WITH LIVED EXPERIENCE OF HOMELESSNESS, I THINK ALEX IS REALLY GOOD AT DRIVING HOME WHY IT WAS SO IMPORTANT TO AMPLIFY THE VOICES OF WOMEN, GIRLS AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS.
KAITLIN: YEAH, LET’S HAVE ALEX INTRODUCE THEMSELF.
Alex Nelson: Hi, my name is Alex Nelson, my pronouns, are they/them and I am a PhD candidate at Western University in anthropology. I study homelessness, housing policy and gender -- and specifically the role of lived experience in creating more effective and inclusive public policy. I'm also on the steering committee of the Women's National Housing and Homelessness Network, as well as on the Steering Committee of the Canadian Lived Experience Leadership Network. So, there really is this lack of of data and public awareness on hidden forms of homelessness, because it's sometimes so invisible that people don't know that they are experiencing homelessness, which if you don't know that you are able to access services and resources, means that sometimes you end up in situations that are even more precarious than you might otherwise experience. And I think this survey does a really good job of shedding light on some of those things that are complicated dynamics. And, the survey results really demonstrate the ways that these long standing historical and ongoing forms of oppression, exploitation, dispossession and violence, impact and shape contemporary experiences of homelessness for women, girls and gender diverse peoples. I think one of the things that really stood out to me in seeing the results from the survey is just how much experiences of gender diversity and queerness impact someone's experience of homelessness. And put up so many more barriers than for people's... heterosexual or CIS gender counterparts. It just means there's layers of discrimination and layers of barriers in between someone accessing housing or accessing resources.
AVERY: KAITLIN, ALEX IS SO GOOD AT LAYING OUT THE CONTEXT HERE.
KAITLIN: Yeah, they really are. And I mean, I think that their insights are really critical here. At the intersection of the exclusions and oppression that Alex is talking about are really not well understood or reflected in terms of how we respond to homelessness in Canada. I think there is a sense that looking at intersectional oppression is kind of a niche concern or a secondary concern when we're talking about homelessness, that it's primarily a housing policy issue. I think what Alex lays out really demonstrates why that's not the case, why we need to center this kind of approach and use it to transform how we approach homelessness.
AVERY: YEAH, ABSOLUTELY. ALEX TOLD US THEY’RE HOPING WHAT’S BEEN LEFT OUT OF THIS CONVERSATION BEFORE WILL BECOME PART OF THE CONVERSATION NOW BECAUSE OF THE SURVEY. WHICH I THINK IS SO IMPORTANT, SO HERE’S ALEX.
Alex Nelson: The thing that's so profound to me is that you can be living in a house and still be experiencing homelessness. And I think one of the things that I think we really need to change our conversation on in the homelessness world is homelessness is so much more than a physical structure or a physical place to lay your head at night. It's all of the other things that the power dynamics, the relationships, the safety and accessibility of that structure, that compound someone's experience of homelessness and is so often left out of the discourse.
[Theme music bridge]
AVERY: KAITLIN, I THINK IT’S TIME TO DIVE INTO THE REALLY IMPORTANT FINDINGS OF THE SURVEY. CAN YOU GIVE ME A SENSE OF WHY THESE 10 FINDINGS ARE SO GROUNDBREAKING IN THE WORK YOU’RE DOING WITH THE WOMEN’S NETWORK?
KAITLIN: Yeah, so this really is kind of the first national portrait specific to women and gender diverse people and what their experience of housing, precarity and homelessness looks like. And again, like our methodology really was focused on lived experts driving the content of the kinds of questions we asked. We were able to include five hundred women and gender diverse folks across the country. Really getting a diversity demographically, regionally, kind of north to south, east to west. And, we've had patches of data and research, but this is kind of the first national portrait we have. And we decided to as a first kind of look at the data to identify 10 key challenges and findings that will help us get our head around the challenges we're up against and the opportunities we have in Canada around preventing and ending homelessness for women and girls and gender diverse folks.
AVERY: OKAY SO, WHY DON’T WE WORK THROUGH THE 10 KEY FINDINGS IN ORDER. FOR EACH ONE, I WOULD LOVE IF YOU WOULD JUST GIVE US A QUICK SUMMARY FROM YOU OF WHAT EACH ONE MEANS -- AND ALONG THE WAY WE WILL HEAR FROM MEMBERS OF THE NETWORK TO GIVE US EVEN MORE CONTEXT AS WE GO.
KAITLIN: THAT SOUNDS GREAT.
AVERY: I’M READING FROM THE REPORT HERE… THE FIRST FINDING IS THAT “WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE REPORTED EXPERIENCING WIDESPREAD, CHRONIC HOUSING AFFORDABILITY ISSUES LINKED TO LOW INCOMES. DESPITE THIS, MANY PARTICIPANTS WERE NOT ACCESSING THE GOVERNMENT BENEFITS THEY WOULD LIKELY QUALIFY FOR.” WHAT’S REALLY IMPORTANT TO KNOW ABOUT THIS SPECIFIC FINDING?
KAITLIN: So, what we found is there are these kind of deep housing affordability issues for women and gender diverse folks. And we found that a third of participants actually had to leave their most recent housing because they just couldn't afford it anymore. What's really important about this is it suggests there's a deep link between housing affordability and poverty and income. And what we saw in our survey is that a really significant amount of women, girls and gender diverse folks who are in this position are not actually accessing the benefits that they qualify for. So about 40 percent of participants who are over sixty five were not receiving senior's benefits. For folks who had one disability, it was amazing. Sixty three percent were not receiving a disability benefit, and this actually increased for folks with more disabilities. So for people with three or more disabilities, eighty five percent of them are not receiving a disability benefit. And so, what is important about this finding is it demonstrates that housing is gendered. Housing is a gendered issue, in part because income is gendered and in part because of the severe inadequacy of our social assistance policies.
AVERY: I WANT TO ADD IN HANNAH BRAIS’ TAKE ON THIS TOO. FROM THE WORK SHE DOES, SHE SAYS THIS FINDING SPECIFICALLY WAS ONE THAT REALLY STRUCK HER.
Hannah Brais: That is something that to me is so common, whereas just like people definitely should be eligible, cannot access the thing and therefore are suffering further in whatever way you want to understand suffering. And that, to me, was a little bit striking that it came forward in the survey that we were able to kind of say “yeah, they're not adequately accessing the supports available”, which then to me leads to the next question I want to ask is why you and I have my ideas of why, but I'd like to know further. There's just this huge gap between essentially the bridge between when somebody goes from being a precarious tenant or precariously housed to in this absolute homeless state. And we don't talk about the structural factors that inform that switch between the two and I saw pretty quickly just doing front line work, as have many people, that that line is incredibly fine.
AVERY: THAT FINE LINE THAT HANNAH TALKS ABOUT I THINK ALSO APPLIES TO HOUSING STABILITY. WHICH, BRINGS US RIGHT INTO THE SECOND KEY FINDING. WHICH SAYS -- “WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE EXPERIENCE A WIDE RANGE OF HOUSING ADEQUACY AND SUITABILITY ISSUES, WITH SAFETY BEING A COMMON CONCERN THAT UNDERMINES HOUSING STABILITY AND LEADS TO HOUSING LOSS”. KAITLIN, CAN YOU GIVE ME A SENSE OF WHAT SOME OF THE ISSUES WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE SAY THEY ARE FACING?
KAITLIN: So, housing conditions was a major issue. What we found was that 70 percent of women and gender diverse folks who completed the survey reported at least one problem with the condition of their current or most recent housing. So that range from pests, to incomplete repairs, to mold, to their apartment being too small for the size of their family. And across all of these issues really was this theme of safety. So, almost half of the... of the participants said they had at least one safety concern. And certainly there were... there were a lot of folks talking about safety concerns within their home, but there was a lot that were also talking about safety in the neighborhood or in their building, not feeling that their children are safe. Those all being kind of the context in which they are living on a daily basis. And a third of the sample also said that this has kind of deteriorated quite significantly during COVID, that their housing situation has gotten worse. And I think these findings highlight what we've been saying for a long time that adequate housing must include safety and health. You know, one... in my world when we're thinking about policy kind of policy solutions around homelessness, there's this major focus on housing supply. But I think our survey results really point to kind of the seriousness with which we should take the maintenance and repair of existing low income rental units because these are the units that so many women and their children are living in. And if we kept them up, they... this would not be a pathway into homelessness. And you know, certainly we see many women and gender diverse folks who are just kind of enduring this severe health and safety hazards like mold, like pests -- just to stay housed. But almost a third of them have to leave when those conditions become unbearable. And once they're unhoused, they're in housing markets that are enormously overheated, often have limited savings or incomes. So frankly, the very smart thing that we could do from a policy perspective is focus on repairing and maintaining these low income units.
AVERY: SO, ON TO FINDING 3. THE SURVEY FOUND THAT “THE CHRONICITY AND DEPTH OF POVERTY AMONGST PARTICIPANTS LED MANY TO ENGAGE IN MULTIPLE ADDITIONAL SUBSISTENCE STRATEGIES EACH MONTH. IN MANY CASES, THIS CONTRIBUTED TO INCREASED DEBT. THE DATA HERE REALLY VIVIDLY ILLUSTRATES THE LENGTHS WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE GO TO JUST TO MAKE ENDS MEET”. HOW IMPORTANT IS THIS FINDING, KAITLIN?
KAITLIN: This is, I think, one of the most important findings in this survey. It really fits with the first two we just talked about with respect to poverty. But certainly what we saw is that a very large percentage of women and gender diverse folks who were housed or currently housed, have zero dollars after paying for housing to meet their basic needs. So, only 14 percent said they had enough to meet their basic needs. So the kind of the depth of this poverty has meant that many women and gender diverse folks have to kind of develop these various income generating strategies in addition to working part time or full time or being on social assistance. And on average, folks engaged in two of these strategies, almost a third relied on food banks. We saw actually one in 10 who were engaging in sex work. And I think what was especially important is that each month, about a third of these women would go further into debt, so they would go to a Money Mart, they would borrow money from friends or family, they would skip paying a bill, they'd rely on credit cards. And when we think about women's safety and socio-economic rights, it's really critical to understand that as this happens, there is risks around safety. There are risks around the ability for them to remain with their children. There are risks around the future prospects of renting or owning housing. Some of these debts are debts that women and gender diverse folks can't get out of... may never get out of, and they're accumulating each month, in part because of the low level of social assistance rates that many of these folks are accessing. But also just kind of low minimum wage combined with the enormous housing prices that we're seeing. And I think it really suggests, among other things, that we are not going to be able to end homelessness for women without a transformative approach to social assistance policies across Canada.
AVERY:YEAH, ABSOLUTELY. AND, I THINK THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BRING IN KHULUD BAIG HERE. I WILL LET HER INTRODUCE HERSELF.
Khulud Baig: Hi, my name is Khulud Baig. I'm a housing researcher and policy adviser with the Women's National Housing and Homelessness Network. I've been involved in all of the work so far that the Network has done. Primarily, phase one -- the literature review.
KAITLIN: So Khulud was a really critical partner in this work. She was involved in putting the survey together, looking at survey questions. Was really critical in terms of interpreting what the data means and co-authoring the report. And she also has been working really closely with our Indigenous partners on this work. And just so honored to have her involved.
AVERY: YEAH ABSOLUTELY, SHE’S GREAT AT NOT ONLY TELLING STORIES, BUT GROUNDING THIS IN POLICY AND WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE. WHEN WE WERE DISCUSSING THIS FINDING KHULUD SHARED AN EXAMPLE OF HOW HAVING AN AVERAGE OF $596.66, WHICH IS WHAT THE SURVEY FOUND, LEFT OVER A MONTH AFTER PAYING FOR HOUSING, CONTINUES THE CYCLE OF POVERTY FOR SURVEY PARTICIPANTS. IN A PREVIOUS JOB KHULUD WAS DOING MUNICIPAL ORGANIZING IN OTTAWA WORKING WITH RACIALIZED WOMEN WHO WERE NEWCOMERS OR WHO HAD REFUGEE STATUS.
Khulud Baig: In Ottawa, just a monthly transit pass is over one hundred dollars. And for a lot of people, that's a lot to afford. And the big barrier to getting that monthly pass can be the paperwork that you have to do if you want to get a low income rate on it. And even if you do get a lower income rate on it, if you have three family members that are using transit, you're still looking at at least one hundred, one hundred and fifty in transit costs. So it's that in itself, like if you're thinking about somebody who has around six hundred dollars to survive, just one hundred, two hundred of their dollars can potentially be spent just trying to get around, you know, which leaves you with just four hundred dollars to cover the cost of food, medical necessities. And then if you have young children and the cost of their diapers, clothing, cell phone, everything else that you need. And this is really like the levels of poverty that we're seeing. So putting a number to it does so much for directing policy in a specific direction.
AVERY: WE WILL HEAR MORE FROM KHULUD AT THE END OF THIS EPISODE ON HOW THESE SURVEY FINDINGS CAN DIRECT FUTURE POLICY.
KAITLIN: SHOULD WE MOVE ON TO THE FOURTH KEY FINDING?
AVERY: YES, LET ME READ THIS ONE FROM THE SURVEY ALSO. THE SURVEY FOUND THAT “WHILE EVICTION WAS A COMMON EXPERIENCE AMONGST WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PARTICIPANTS, MANY STRUGGLED TO ACCESS LEGAL ADVICE AND SUPPORTS THAT COULD HAVE HELPED. THE CONSEQUENCES OF EVICTION WERE SEVERE FOR MANY, INCLUDING HOUSING LOSS, HOMESLESSNESS AND CONTINUED EXPOSURE TO ABUSE”. THIS IS A BIG ONE. CAN YOU BREAK THIS DOWN FOR US, KAITLIN?
KAITLIN: Yeah, absolutely. So there IS some interesting data around evictions, so we found that only 37 percent of women, gender diverse folks actually identified as having experienced an eviction. But those that did really struggled to get help in ways that had profound consequences on their lives. So we asked people, “OK, what happened? You experienced an eviction, what happened when you couldn't get legal support or advice?”. And I want to read a few responses for you here from folks. So one person wrote, “had baby and was in hospital when evicted”. So she was evicted while giving birth. A second person wrote, “I attempted to dispute my housing eviction, but was denied by RTO. A meeting because of a technical mistake on the deadline made by the system was refused a dispatch number. No such system helped me. I was evicted with no notice. Was given 10 minutes to leave, with nowhere to go. Three children.” So, in all of these stories, you hear not only about the impact of an eviction on the mother or the woman here, but also on the children. And this is so important for us to understand because you change the trajectory of a child's life with these kind of experiences. We know that these kind of early experiences of housing, precarity or eviction can lead to child welfare involvement, and that child welfare involvement can be a pipeline into homelessness for young people, but also for mothers. That the trauma of actually losing your child or being separated from your child is a trauma that precipitates homelessness. So it's kind of a very complicated web that these kind of experiences can result in and, you know, one of these participants talked about is just a technical mistake in the system that resulted in this eviction and had huge, huge implications. So I think there's a couple of things to take away from this. Certainly eviction prevention for women and their children is so key and the importance of using a gender equity lens in terms of how we think about and respond to eviction. But this is also an area that's so understudy. I've really been trying to dig into what research is out there on how we design eviction prevention for women, girls and gender diverse folks and their dependents. And there really isn't very much out there. And this is, I would just say this such a rich area of research and such an important area for policy change.
AVERY: ABSOLUTELY. AND IT THINK TALKING ABOUT CHILDREN IN THAT CONTEXT IS SO IMPORTANT, BECAUSE I DON’T THINK WE OFTEN IMAGINE PEOPLE EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS WITH CHILDREN.
KAITLIN: THAT’S RIGHT.
AVERY: I KNOW A PART OF THAT IS ALSO WHEN BREAKUPS HAPPEN AND A WOMAN OR GENDER DIVERSE PERSON IS NOT IN A GOOD DOMESTIC SITUATION. THAT BRINGS US TO KEY FINDING 5. WHICH IS -- “EXPERIENCING A BREAKUP WAS THE PRIMARY REASON THAT WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE LOST THEIR MOST RECENT HOUSING. THIS SUGGESTS HOUSING FOR THIS GROUP IS DEEPLY DEPENDENT UPON MAINTAINING A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP WITH A MAN, PARTNER OR OTHER PERSON”. THIS ONE I HAVE TO SAY WAS ESPECIALLY STRIKING TO ME. JUST HOW DEPENDENT THIS HOUSING SITUATION IS ON SOMEONE YOU DON’T HAVE CONTROL OVER.
KAITLIN: Absolutely. I think, you know, I think there are many rich findings to the survey, but for me, this is perhaps one of the most important ones in terms of demonstrating why and how housing is a gendered experience and why homelessness is a gendered experience. We asked participants, “Why did you lose your most recent housing?”. And we gave them so many options, you know, you name it, like affordability issues, housing condition issues, you know, medical emergencY, lost my job. I mean, you name it, we gave every answer under the Sun. And the top reason that women and gender diverse folks are losing their housing is because of a breakup. Almost half of them, this was their primary reason in their last... their most recent housing experience. So, what this means is that in order to remain housed, many women and gender diverse people have to remain in some kind of personal or sexual relationship with another person. And I was just talking about how, you know, the eviction rates are a little bit lower than I would have expected in the last finding. And this finding helps us understand that. What we're really seeing is women are being evicted informally through these breakups, either because they're never on the lease or there is such a power inequality or a relationship of abuse that it prevents them from remaining housed. When we think about tackling women's homelessness, we really, really need to tackle ensuring security of tenure for women and gender diverse folks, and we need to understand this as a human rights issue. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing has really beautifully articulated this and in many of her thematic reports, and I just wanted to read here one of the things she stated is: “The right to own, manage, enjoy and dispose of property is central to a woman's right to enjoy financial independence and in many countries will be critical to her ability to to earn a livelihood and to provide adequate housing and nutrition for herself and for her family”. So, we need real equity around home ownership, around security of tenure, around access to being listed on the lease and having autonomy and self-determination in that regard.
AVERY: YEAH ABSOLUTELY, THAT’S SUCH GOOD INSIGHT THERE. FINDING NUMBER 6 IS ONE I WANT TO FOCUS ON, BECAUSE ALEX NELSON GAVE ME A GREAT AMOUNT OF INSIGHT ON THIS ONE FROM THEIR OWN EXPERIENCE WITH HOMESLESSNESS. THE FINDING SAYS -- “HOMELESSNESS BEGINS EARLY IN LIFE FOR A MAJORITY OF WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE, AND IS OFTEN FOLLOWED BY A CHRONIC, CHAOTIC CHURN OF PRECARIOUS HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS SITUATIONS.”
KAITLIN: Yes, so the key takeaway here is that most women and gender diverse folks are... become homeless at a young age. So almost one in five became homeless before the age of 16, And amongst those, the average age they became homeless was actually at the age of 11. And this was certainly true, particularly for Indigenous young people, for LGBTQ2S folks and gender diverse folks as well. And so this really demonstrates the importance of early interventions kind of to stop this pathway into homelessness. If you become homeless before the age of 16, you're not going to be able to access a lot of services or supports. You are really on your own. So we really need some policy transformation that meets the needs of young people who before the age of 16, find themselves without housing.
AVERY: YEAH AND LIKE I SAID ALEX SHARED WITH US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCE WITH HOMESLESSNESS IN EARLY LIFE. AND SO I AM JUST GOING TO LET ALEX SPEAK TO THIS ONE.
Alex Nelson: I am someone who experienced youth homelessness. And I just really didn't get a chance to connect with other young people who experienced homelessness at the time that I was experiencing homelessness, because I was experiencing hidden homelessness. So, I was staying with friends and family, staying in hotels and motels, so I just didn't know that there were other young people like me who were experiencing the things that I had experienced. And so the finding that I saw written on the page of the survey, fifty five point seven percent of women, girls and gender diverse peoples has experienced homelessness before the age of 16. It has this profound sort of reality now that I know it's not just me.
AVERY: KAITLIN, THIS HAS TO BE ONE THE REALLY IMPORTANT PARTS OF THIS SURVEY -- BEYOND PUBLIC EDUCATION AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS -- THERE’S THIS IDEA THAT WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE LIKE ALEX CAN SEE THEMSELVES IN THESE FINDINGS.
KAITLIN: Yeah, exactly, and I think one of the beautiful things that research can do is kind of help hold up a mirror to experiences or exclusions that are invisible, and I'm just so grateful to Alex for sharing their experiences as they relate to this finding. It's so powerful for people to hear their reflections on this.
[Theme music bridge]
AVERY: LET’S MOVE TO FINDING NUMBER 7 -- “WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE REPORTED SIGNIFICANT BARRIERS TO ACCESSING EMERGENCY SERVICES, WITH ALMOST A THIRD BEING UNABLE TO ACCESS A BED WHEN THEY NEEDED ONE”. THE SURVEY FOUND THIS WAS FOR A NUMBER OF DIFFERENT REASONS. CAN YOU GIVE ME A RUN THROUGH OF THE DATA?
KAITLIN: Yeah, absolutely. So we found that the real issues kind of clustered around three key themes, so this issue of discrimination, eligibility and suitability and across those it ranged, you know, folks reported experiencing anti-Black racism, for example, they reported experiencing discrimination on the basis of gender. They couldn't find shelter spaces that fit for their family or for their pets. They might have been barred because of substance use or because of perceived substance use or because they had experienced violence, but that the violence was not perpetrated by a partner -- it was a family member or someone else. So there's kind of a range of policies across the homelessness sector in the violence against women sector that are creating barriers to access in ways that are quite damaging and particularly damaging to folks who already are marginalized on the basis of their identity. So, this is definitely a key issue combined with what we do know and we've known for years, so many years... is the capacity issues in shelters across Canada. And we asked women, you know “what happened when you couldn't access a bed?”. And some of the answers were, I wanted to read here for you because it's important for folks to understand. So “I slept on the streets or in cars”. “I stayed awake all night looking for a friend to take me and usually”. “I left and spent the night sleeping in the lobby of a nearby hospital”. “I slept outside or slept with a man for a place”. “I slept outside, and when I did, the police arrested me and stole all my personal belongings”. “Begged a friend to let me stay with him, and in exchange, I cleaned his apartment”. So, the consequences of turning women and gender diverse folks away from shelters are so significant. Underlying all of this is kind of a lack of investment in women focused and women run shelters and services -- and by women, I mean cis and trans as well as gender diverse. There's severe lack of shelters and supports for gender diverse folks. What we know is that about sixty eight percent of funding towards shelters is dedicated either to male specific or co-ed shelters, and only 13 percent is dedicated to women. And we know many women and gender diverse folks aren't going to go into co-ed shelters because of risk of violence. So there's a profound need for substantial investment and a review and audit of the kind of policies that are creating barriers for folks to actually access the beds that are there.
AVERY: OKAY, MOVING ON TO KEY FINDING 8 SAYS “WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE EXPERIENCING HOUSING NEED AND HOMESLESSNESS REPORTED HIGH EXPOSURE TO TRAUMA AND VIOLENCE, WITH 75% IDENTIFYING AS A SURVIVOR OF TRAUMA OR ABUSE”. I THINK THIS IS SOMETHING THAT ALEX MENTIONED IN THEIR COMMENTS EARLIER, AND BECAUSE OF THAT I’M NOT SURPRISED THAT’S SUCH A HIGH NUMBER, BUT I’M ALSO SURPRISED THAT THAT’S SUCH A HIGH NUMBER. IT’S A LOT TO DIGEST. WAS THIS A FINDING YOU EXPECTED TO SEE?
KAITLIN: Yeah, I mean, I echo you hear Avery, like because I've been thinking about and studying homelessness for a long time, this level of trauma is not out of line with what I was expecting, but it's also unbelievably shocking and deeply shocking in a country like Canada with the kind of wealth and social services and social infrastructure that we have. I think what was important is we found that this trauma really began early in life for many people and just kind of continues once on the street. And the importance of a trauma-informed approach really has to be centered in our work with women and gender diverse folks because of this.
AVERY: I WANT TO BRING ALEX BACK HERE, BECAUSE THEY SHARED A REALLY IMPACTFUL STORY ABOUT TRAUMA AND HOW IT RELATES TO REALLY -- JUST BASIC FUNCTIONING OVER TIME. THIS IS A LONG CLIP, BUT I REALLY WANT LISTENERS TO HEAR AND UNDERSTAND THIS PART OF ALEX’S STORY.
Alex Nelson: In terms of the impact that trauma can have on someone's life and how it kind of seeps into every other experience in your life. It's really interesting. So I came to understand myself as someone who had experienced trauma at a conference on homelessness. I had already been doing research on homelessness. I was in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, doing field research with people generally involved in the policymaking process. I was in this room actually talking about women's experiences of homelessness. And at one point during kind of a question and answer period, I stood up and I said out loud for the first time, I am a person who has experienced homelessness. I couldn't say anything else. I, I, I broke down crying and I was shaking so hard I couldn't hold my cup of coffee. And actually other people with lived experience of homelessness in the room took me aside and helped me calm down. And it was through that lived experience, through that shared understanding of what it means to claim space as a lived expert and what it means to have experienced those things as a young person and as a young adult, that shared sense of understanding was so important for me in that moment. And so, I recognized because of the way that I had responded to acknowledging my experiences, the way they just came up in that moment that I had potentially experienced trauma. And I didn't connect trauma to experiences of homelessness in that direct sort of way because I didn't understand that trauma could be something that unfolds over many years, slowly, kind of like a gradual wearing away. I thought of trauma as something that was experienced in kind of short, sharp bursts, like a traumatic event and coming to be a scholar of trauma, someone who researches trauma. I came to realize that experiences of structural violence and experiences of profound uncertainty. Especially as a young person can stay with you for a really, really long time and can shape the way that you move through the world. For me, as someone who is in a very privileged position to be in academia, it was really impactful. The trauma that I had experienced still has a very deep hold over me. And it and it always will. But it gets in the way of every single aspect of your life trying to stay employed, trying to stay on top of even cleaning your house. It can be so difficult when you have all of these traumatic sort of responses or anxiety and stress.
KAITLIN: Alex is so powerful here and describing the kind of wearing a way of trauma. I love that language. T he ways in which it manifests in the kind of tiny, intimate details of our lives, in the ways in which it can be so isolating and so misunderstood, and how institutions really can exacerbate it in powerful ways. And this has to be front of mind as we're designing solutions to homelessness for women, gender diverse folks.
AVERY: I THINK THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THAT IS HAVING EXPERIENCES LIKE ALEX’S OR FROM PEOPLE WHO PARTICIPATED IN THIS SURVEY, HAVING THAT THERE SO YOU CAN READ HOW POWERFUL TRAUMA IS AND HOW IT CAN SEEP INTO EVERY PART OF LIFE.
KAITLIN: ABSOLUTELY.
AVERY: KEY FINDING 9 SAYS “WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE, PARTICULARLY THOSE FROM EQUITY-SEEKING GROUPS, REPORTED SIGNIFICANT LEVELS OF DISCRIMINATION FROM LANDLORDS AND PROPERTY MANAGERS, IN MANY CASES LEADING TO HOUSING LOSS OR BARRIERS TO ACCESSING HOUSING”. WHY IS THIS SUCH AN IMPORTANT FINDING, KAITLIN?
KAITLIN: This is really important because it has huge human rights implications. So, we found that 80 percent of participants are experiencing at least one form of discrimination from their landlord or property manager, and 15 percent were forced to move out because of this. So, we are actively making people homeless because of discriminatory conduct by landlords and property managers. And there is a desperate need for both improved access to justice for people who are experiencing that kind of discrimination, but also oversight to prevent this kind of discrimination and its harmful effects.
AVERY: FOR KHULUD THIS WAS ALSO A VERY IMPORTANT FINDING. SHE REALLY WANTED TO FOCUS ON IT. SHE SAYS THIS IS SOMETHING SHE’S BEEN HEARING ABOUT FOR A LONG TIME, BUT BEFORE NOW IT WAS ONLY ANECDOTAL. KHULUD SAYS THE FINDING THAT 80% OF PARTICIPANTS REPORTED EXPERIENCING AT LEAST ONE FORM OF DISCRIMINATION FROM A LANDLORD OR PROPERTY MANAGER. SHE SAYS SPECIFICALLY FOR RACIALIZED WOMEN OR GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE THIS IS A HUGE BARRIER TO FINDING HOUSING.
Khulud Baig: I really want to speak to what we've been hearing from Indigenous women and and and gender diverse folks who we've spoken to this multiple times where they'll find a property online and they'll message someone online and the person would say the is available and then they'll show up, come back and try to put in an offer or try to go move forward with the process. And they'll be told the property is not available, even though it's still listed online. And these are just the very apparent forms of discrimination that particularly Indigenous women and gender diverse people experience in urban contexts. And it ends up being one of the most critical ways or pathways through which Indigenous women and gender folks experience homelessness. So really, I think this is such a critical finding. And I think this is something that deserves a critical policy on it as well. Like what are the means to mitigate this impact that landlords and property managers have on women's housing outcomes?
KAITLIN: I think what is important to contextualize this more broadly is also around the financialization of housing, the role that large corporate landlords are playing in terms of the displacement of racialized communities across Canada and the driving up of prices beyond the means of folks who are on low incomes and disproportionately Indigenous, racialized and persons of color really suffering the consequences of that. So, I think... I love what Khulud said here, and I think it's critical to understand this in a broader context of structural racism and discrimination that is being facilitated by a very Capitalist approach to housing and a failure to uphold the human right to housing in Canada, despite it being in federal legislation.
AVERY: ABSOLUTELY. WE’VE REACHED THE LAST ONE -- KEY FINDING 10. WHICH IS THAT “79% OF WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE EXPERIENCING HOUSING NEED OR HOMELESSNESS REPORT HAVING A DISABILITY. THIS GROUP REPORTS SIGNIFICANT INEQUALITIES AND DISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF ABILITY, WITH SEVERE CONSEQUENCES FOR MANY”.
KAITLIN: This was a huge, important finding and really deserves further analysis, and this is something we're working on at the Women's Network. But you know, it was fairly shocking to us that the level of disability was this high and that on average participants were reporting having three disabilities with some of them reporting having as many as 11. And, part of this may be because a good chunk of our sample was from low barrier drop-ins for women and gender diverse folks. So, it may be in part because this group is more likely to experience marginalization, but having said that, I mean, we saw this level of disability with the other half of the sample as well. And it has big implications in many ways, but including with respect to equity. So the results showed that people with disabilities were unable to access shelter beds when they need them at roughly twice the rate of those without disabilities, they're more likely to be barred, they face tremendous challenges in terms of accessing transportation to get there, and you know, there's a kind of a cumulative effect when we... when folks with disabilities are unable to access shelters or services, they're also at increased risk in terms of health outcomes, but also in terms of exposure to violence that can contribute to further experiences that are disabling. And so we really need to get a handle on this as a human rights issue, as an equity issue and kind of do a sector audit. I think in terms of understanding, where are there barriers? And also in the housing sector, you know, how can we really improve, for example, building codes to ensure accessibility for folks in that they can remain in their communities?
AVERY: WHEN WE TALKED TO ALEX NELSON, THEY WERE VERY INTERESTED IN THIS FINDING IN PARTICULAR. SO, I JUST WANT EVERYONE TO HEAR ALEX’S TAKE ON THE FINDING THAT 79% OF PARTICIPANTS REPORTED SOME FORM OF DISABILITY.
Alex Nelson: I think that is something that is known anecdotally. But having the hard evidence to support that means that we have a new foothold for advocacy. And I myself am a person with a disability. I have complex PTSD, which is just one of my disabilities, and I believe that is a consequence of my homelessness experience. And so when we're talking about disability and homelessness, there's this narrative that deinstitutionalization is one of the drivers of modern mass homelessness and that, I think unfairly puts the blame for homelessness on people with disabilities who were institutionalized in the 70s, 60s, 70s and 80s. And I think that when we're talking about disability and homelessness, that's often the first place people will go or talking about, well, “people with experience of homelessness have mental health issues or have substance use disorders”. And I think it's really inappropriate to leave the conversation there because it is so much more complicated. And now we have survey findings that show that homelessness is an experience that is disabling. It is also an experience that is traumatizing. So it exacerbates disabilities for people who already have them. And the overrepresentation of people with disabilities can also be linked to structural ableism, structural sanism that puts barriers between people and accessing employment, accessing income, accessing housing. But also the experience of homelessness means that you are under incredible stress, which can exacerbate underlying conditions. It can also put you up in situations where you are faced with pollutants or toxins or poisons. And so the experience of homelessness is one that for many people can make things worse if they were already there or cause physical and mental disabilities.
[Theme music bridge]
AVERY: SO KAITLIN, WE’VE BEEN THROUGH THE 10 KEY FINDINGS THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR CONTEXT HERE AND YOUR THOUGHTS -- AND THERE ARE ALSO 14 RECOMMENDATIONS THAT CAME FROM THIS RESEARCH. I WONDER IF YOU WOULD WALK ME THROUGH WHAT THE WOMEN’S NETWORK IS CALLING FOR NOW THAT YOU HAVE THIS RESEARCH BEYOND ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE.
KAITLIN: Yeah, absolutely. So the first is certainly not surprising is the deep need for affordable housing and supportive housing that meets the unique needs of women, girls and gender diverse folks. We're specifically interested in ensuring that women led organizations and nonprofits are able to kind of help drive housing solutions because they know the population so well. And part of this will require us thinking about how do we define housing need? How do we define affordability, how do we define homelessness and ensure that policy is reflecting the depth of poverty and the depth of housing need that this population is facing? Related to that is we need to be thinking about gender equity in terms of funding allocation, but also in terms of prioritization. So, a lot of affordable housing interventions at this point really are, you know, not meeting the kind of core housing women and gender diverse folks who are in core housing need. So, for example, we could redesign the Canada Housing Benefit in a way that would reach those in the greatest level of housing need. That would be a great move forward. Certainly a focus across all of this work has to be Indigenous women, girls and gender diverse folks in Two Spirit people. There's brilliant, brilliant guidance within the final report of the Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls that relates to housing that has to be at the center of this work, as well as a focus on home ownership and lease holding for women, girls and gender diverse folks like being able to have the key to your own door that you can close. That is safe, that is adequate, that you know you can you have enough space for your children. All of that is really key if we're going to move forward on preventing and ending women's homelessness.
AVERY: YEAH AND I KNOW YOU ARE BEING REALLY BROAD ABOUT THE RECOMMENDATIONS, AND THERE ARE 14 OF THEM. I WOULD REALLY ENCOURAGE LISTENERS TO HEAD TO THE SHOW NOTES OF THIS EPISODE -- WE WILL HAVE LINKS TO THE REPORT AND YOU CAN READ THOSE 14 RECOMMENDATIONS IN TOTAL. I THINK THEY ARE REALLY IMPORTANT AND REALLY ACTIONABLE FOR CITIZENS TO LOBBY THE GOVERNMENT FOR AND TELL THEIR MP AND MPPS THAT IT’S WHAT THEY WANT TO SEE HAPPEN. SO, PLEASE DO READ THOSE 14 RECOMMENDATIONS. BEFORE WE END OFF IN THIS EPISODE, I WANT TO COME BACK TO OUR THREE WONDERFUL WNHHN MEMBERS WHO WERE INTERVIEWED FOR THIS EPISODE. THEY ALL WERE SO PASSIONATE ABOUT THE WAY THIS SURVEY WAS DONE, THE GROUPS WHO PARTICIPATED IN IT AND THE AFFECT THE FINDINGS COULD HAVE ON THE LARGER CONVERSATION AROUND WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS. SO KAITLIN, I THOUGHT WE COULD END OFF WITH THEIR THOUGHTS ON WHAT THEY HOPE WILL HAPPEN NOW THAT THE FINDINGS ARE PUBLIC. SO AGAIN, IN ORDER... HERE ARE HANNAH BRAIS, KHULUD BAIG AND ALEX NELSON.
Hannah Brais: We are soon to have a national housing advocate. Right. So to me, I see this as if you need any more large evidence base of a systematic problem or a systemic issue as it relates to homelessness and a clear violation of people's right to housing... To me, this is it. This is I don't think you could ask for more of an evidence base to defend a large scale systemic issue and evidence of egregious housing conditions for a whole group of people. So to me, I want to see this... I want to see this go and test our right to housing. I want to see us put our money where our mouth is. And this is funding that came from the CMHC as well to conduct this research. I want to see this national commitment to ending homelessness actually embodied in the mechanisms that we've proposed, because to me, I haven't seen them defend and no one's really seen this defended yet. Let's take this show on the road. Let's advocate for something -- that frankly, shouldn't be that radical -- but kind of radical about women's housing.
Khulud Baig: There are such apparent and evident gaps in the way that housing policy is currently structured that consistently miss women. So, for example, women who are not fleeing violence and who are homeless due to circumstance or due to some most of the times it's structural and systemic marginalizations that make women homeless. If they're homeless due to any of those reasons in which they're not directly fleeing a violent situation, the the kind of supports that are available to them are not enough to catch them for falling into deeper gaps and deeper cracks, and I think that really is a point to hold on to because a lot of times when we talk about women's homelessness, it's conflated with women who are experiencing violence or fleeing violence. And the policy gap there really creates a lot of structural barriers for women who are homeless due to circumstances to then access support and to then navigate the system. So that's really one big policy push that something like this can create, which is to look at housing, housing need and housing support through a lens of women's insecurity, through a lens of women who've interacted with child welfare systems or criminal justice systems, through the lens of women who are engaged in sex work and women who are experiencing deep poverty. Like all of these lenses make up the full picture of women's homelessness. And that really is the big policy push.
Alex Nelson: As an individual with lived experience of homelessness, reading through the survey findings was incredibly validating. Seeing the things that I had experienced as reflected in survey responses and survey findings, I think it's so important to see this is not just an experience that I had. This is not an isolated experience, but it also gives me the motivation to keep doing work to end and prevent homelessness, because it isn't just me who experienced this. And in fact, so, so many Canadians have experienced the exact same thing or overlapping things. And it really leaves me with this desire to make these changes to the systems and structures that shape experiences of homelessness that are so violent. Because we really need to come to see people experiencing homelessness as rights holders and that Canada has an obligation to those rights holders under the National Housing Strategy Act, which is law in Canada now as of 2019. And Canada is currently falling short of its legal obligations to rights holders. And homelessness is a massive violation of those rights.
AVERY: WE’VE REACHED THE END OF THIS EPISODE. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BEING MY CO-HOST TODAY KAITLIN.
KAITLIN: Oh, my gosh, thank you for having me, it's been such a pleasure, Avery.
AVERY: BEFORE WE GO, I THOUGHT I’D GIVE YOU THE LAST WORD. WHAT ARE YOU HOPING WILL BE THE LASTING EFFECT OF THE RELEASE OF THE SURVEY RESULTS? WHAT’S THE GOAL?
KAITLIN: What I want to see is an understanding of homelessness as a gendered issue and the need to respond to it with that in mind, so we can no longer kind of continue to approach homelessness as if gender and other intersectional identities don't matter. Our survey really makes it clear that these are distinct experiences and they have huge implications not just for women themselves, but also for intergenerational homelessness, for chronic homelessness. And we need to be working in partnership with lived experts in terms of designing solutions. We have a huge opportunity with the National Housing Strategy, the National Housing Strategy Act and, you know, enormous expertise across the country. The goal really has to be advancing the right to housing for women, girls and gender diverse folks and engaging lived experts in doing that and monitoring our progress.
AVERY: ABSOLUTELY. THANK YOU FOR THAT. WE’D LIKE TO THANK OUR GUESTS TODAY FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO THIS EPISODE.
HANNAH BRAIS IS A MEMBER OF THE WOMEN’S NATIONAL HOUSING AND HOMESLESSNESS NETWORK, AND IS THE CO-CHAIR OF THE POLICY AND GOVERNMENT RELATIONS WORKING GROUP. HANNAH IS THE RESEARCH COORDINATOR AT THE OLD BREWERY MISSION, A LARGE HOMELESS SERVICE PROVIDER IN QUEBEC.
KAITLIN: KHULUD BAIG IS THE HOUSING RESEARCHER AND POLICY ADVISOR FOR WOMEN’S NATIONAL HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS NETWORK. SHE IS THE AUTHOR ON A NATIONAL LITERATURE REVIEW ON WOMEN AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE’S HOUSING NEEDS IN CANADA.
AVERY: ALEX NELSON IS A PHD CANDIDATE AT WESTERN UNIVERSITY IN ANTHROPOLOGY. THEY SIT ON THE STEERING COMMITTEE OF THE WOMEN’S NATIONAL HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS NETWORK, AND THE STEERING COMMITTEE OF THE CANADIAN LIVED EXPERIENCE LEADERSHIP NETWORK.
AND, MY CO-HOST TODAY -- KAITLIN SCHWAN IS CO-CHAIR OF THE WOMEN’S NATIONAL HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS NETWORK, AND DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH FOR THE SHIFT. KAITLIN TEACHES SOCIAL POLICY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO’S FACULTY OF SOCIAL WORK, WHERE SHE IS APPOINTED ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, STATUS ONLY. SHE IS ALSO A SENIOR RESEARCHER AT THE CANADIAN OBSERVATORY ON HOMELESSNESS (YORK UNIVERSITY).
KAITLIN: And finally, Avery, I just want to say I'm so grateful to the lived experts and partners we worked with to develop the survey to implement it and kind of collect this critical data from across Canada. And this has been made possible by a range of funders, but including specifically CMHC, who really was a major champion of this work, as well as the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, Keepers of the Circle, and the Canadian Research Centre for the Advancement of Women. All of those partners have been really critical, and I'm so grateful that this survey is out in the world and hopefully transforming our thinking. For more on kind of what we're up to and the Women's National Housing Homelessness Network. You can check out w omenshomelessness.com. That's where you can find our report. And I also want to send a special thank you to Kerry Sanders and Erin De for their help with this episode.
AVERY: WELL THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR WORK ON THIS PROJECT, THIS PODCAST EPISODE. YOU CAN FIND A LINK TO THE REPORT “THE PAN-CANADIAN WOMEN’S HOUSING & HOMELESSNESS SURVEY” IN THE SHOW NOTES OF THIS EPISODE.
AVERY: CRSP TALK IS A PRODUCTION FROM THE CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON SECURITY PRACTICES AT WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY. FOR MORE RESEARCH STORIES, LISTEN TO PAST EPISODES OF THIS PODCAST. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE WORK WE DO AT THE CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON SECURITY PRACTICES PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE AR C-R-S-P.ONLINE.
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO CRSP TALK. WE WILL BE BACK AGAIN SOON WITH MORE RESEARCH TO UNCOVER.
I’M AVERY MOORE KLOSS.
KAITLIN: AND I’M KAITLIN SCHWAN.
-----30-----