Housing and Homelessness Symposium Podcast Series
We are excited to release our first podcast series: a showcase of the panel conversations had during our Housing and Homelessness Symposium earlier in the year. Below you will find more information on each talk and links to the podcast itself. The podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Panel 1: The Financialization of Housing
The first panel of the symposium on housing and homelessness addresses one of the overarching causes of housing scarcity: the financialization of housing. State-driven efforts to tackle the problem of homelessness rarely, if ever, work to address the structural causes of the problem and instead aim to implement market-based solutions. This panel, consisting of speakers Tammy Keuhne from One City Peterborough, Rebecca Morgan Quinn from the City of Peterborough and Annie Hedden from the Community Counselling and Resource Centre looks at alternatives to the for-profit housing market. The panel begins with a presentation from Annie Hedden on how the financialization of housing affects the private market, posing challenges for affordability, accessibility, and the adequacy of available housing. The next presentation, from Rebecca Morgan Quinn, looks at what affordable housing is, what it looks like and ways of sheltering housing units from being swept into the private market. The final presentation, from Tammy Keuhne, explores why, how, and what works regarding One City’s efforts to purchase congregant housing. Each presentation points to a hopeful alternative to the status quo of private housing and rental units, highlighting the power of community organisations to support those facing precarious living situations by bypassing the for-profit housing market. Listen below or here.
Panel 2: Decriminalising and Destigmatizing Approaches to Unstable Tenancies
Addressing homelessness not only requires support for people who are already unhoused, but it entails lowering the risk of people shifting into increasingly precarious housing situations. The first speakers of the second panel represent the Finding Home collaboration for addressing Housing Unit Takeovers/HUTs comprised of CMHA, One City, and the Housing Resource Centre. They are followed by a discussion of community mediation by Marion Little. And finally, Brittany MacMillan, the executive director of the Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre demonstrates why addressing gender-based violence is a strategy for homelessness prevention. All three presentations illuminate the value of preventative and restorative approaches to crisis through, for example, simultaneously supporting tenants and their unwelcome guests, sorting out neighbour conflicts before they escalate, and teaching boys how to be allies. They all show respectful, upstream approaches that reduce both harm and the need for more reactive, authoritarian, downstream, and law enforcement interventions. Importantly all show the necessity for continued funding so that these gains are not lost. Listen below or here.
Panel 3: The Local Initiative Plenary
Between 2023 and 2024, there were major initiatives to address housing precarity in Peterborough, most notably, the modular housing project on Wolfe Street. In this panel, speakers Alex Bierk from the City of Peterborough, manager of the modular home project Jessica Penner and Christian Harvey and Auden Palmer from One City talk about how these projects were able to succeed. The panelists discuss the importance of reaching out across differences to those hesitant to solutions like modular housing in achieving Peterborough’s housing goals. Further, the panelists discuss what was learned through this process and some of the roadblocks they faced throughout. The panel concludes with a re-emphasis on the importance of building bridges with those with differing views and a discussion on how to build community where we all survive and thrive. Listen below or here.
Turning to Peterborough’s intersecting opioid and homelessness crises, these panelists share their perspectives on a much-contested approach to addictions: harm reduction. Medical Officer of Health Thomas Piggott, Rapid Access Addiction Medicine/RAAM nurse Shannon Culkeen, and Fourcast project lead Shawntelle Campbell characterize harm reduction as caring for people, meeting them where they are at, maintaining their dignity, and keeping them alive. Housing First, a client-centred approach to housing that prioritizes housing needs and does not require abstinence or treatment preconditions, can be regarded as a kind of harm reduction. The panelists show harm reduction to be about dignity, where one is not living with the pain of withdrawal, not being unhoused, not being judged for the substances one’s body needs, not regarded as disposable. Amid polarizing views on solutions to the opioid crisis, the panelists urge an orientation towards connection and listening to other people’s expressions of widespread, common distress over the substance dependencies and homelessness that are reshaping this community. Listen below or here.
Panel 5: Realizing Rights to Housing and an Adequate Standard of Living
In 1976, the Canadian government committed to ensuring the rights of Canadians to housing and recommitted to this right in 2017 with the National Housing Strategy and again in 2019 with the National Housing Strategy act. With this background in mind, this panel discusses how using grassroots organizing and policy advocacy reshapes power dynamics away from earning rights through market participation to mobilizing and actualizing the right to housing. The first presentation, featuring Irene Suvillaga from Peterborough ACORN and Nico Koyanagi, a coordinator at OPIRG Peterborough, discuss the housing crisis in the context of Canada a neoliberal settler colonial capitalist society. They describe how the current rental regime in Ontario favors developers and landlords at the expense of those living in precarious situations. They argue that we can resist this financialization of the housing market through generating collective power and use ACORN – the Association of Community Reform Now – as an example of how to mobilize this power to reassert our rights to housing. The second presentation discusses the role basic income plays in actualizing our rights to housing and security. Speakers Elisha Rubacha and Joëlle Fauvreau from the Basic Income Peterborough Network bring the conversation back to the rights our government has committed us to. They argue that basic income – the idea that everyone deserves an income – is one method of actualizing these rights. They discuss the distinct types of basic income and how basic income can help grow our democracy. Listen here.
The symposium wraps with a discussion summarizing the insights of the panels and group meetings that took place over the two days of proceedings. In a discussion with those in attendance, each group presents some of their key insights and findings and how these findings and calls to action can be implemented through the various community organizations involved. Some of the key topics discussed are decriminalizing approaches to homelessness, Indigenous homelessness, building relations with those with lived experiences, realizing the right to housing and increasing housing stock. You’ll hear how and who will be working on implementing their calls to action and which sources of power will be called on to assist them in doing so. Listen here.
Lessons Learned from Peterborough’s Latest Homeleness Initiatives
In partnership with Will Pearson at Peterborough Currents, this podcast shares highlights from this panel discussion as a podcast episode.
The conversation was wide ranging. Panelists discussed the potential and limitations of the municipality as a body tasked with responding to homelessness. They also discussed why frontline workers need better job security and why wealth redistribution is necessary to end homelessness.
Please note, this conversation was recorded on February 23, 2024, at which time the Trinity Community Centre’s overnight shelter was set to close on March 31, 2024. A couple mentions of this are made in the podcast. On March 25, One City confirmed to Currents that the shelter will now stay open until at least the end of April with support from United Way Peterborough and District. Listen here.