Session 3. Homelessness in Canada and Toronto:  Past, Present, Future

Homelessness in Canada and Toronto:  Past, Present, Future

6pm    Homelessness: Past, Present, Future     Download PDF of presentation

    

8pm   Discussion with guest expert Kaitlin Schwan, PhD     Download PDF of Kaitlin Schwan's presentation

 Dr. Kaitlin Schwan is the Co-Chair of the Canadian Women’s National Housing and Homelessness Network. She teaches social policy at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Social Work, where she is an Assistant Professor, Status Only. She is also a Senior Researcher at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness which is based at York University, and is the Director of Research at The Shift. Since completing her PhD in Social Work at the University of Toronto, Kaitlin’s research has focused on homelessness prevention in Canada and beyond, particularly for women and youth. Across her work, Kaitlin uses research to build bridges between evidence, advocacy, policy, and lived expertise in order to advance housing justice for all.

Discussion agenda with Kaitlin Schwan:

      • The homelessness research and knowledge mobilization landscape: e.g., the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, the Homeless Hub, other examples. 
      • Evolution of advocacy on addressing homelessness in Canada, 1980s to the present
      • The gendered nature of homelessness and serious housing problems
      • What is the future of mass homelessness in Canada?

Conversation on COVID-19 and Women's Homelessness in Canada
A  very helpful overview discussion of the gendered nature of homelessness and serious housing problems hosted by Dr Kaitlin Schwan with MP Leah Gazan, Leilani Farha, and Anjum Sultana. Conversation on COVID-19 and Women's Homelessness Links to an external site.Conversation on COVID-19 and Women's Homelessness

 

Readings

  1. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (2012) Canadian Definition of Homelessness.   Download PDF

       

  2. Hulchanski, J.D. et al. (2009) “Homelessness: What’s in a Word?” Introduction to Finding Home: Policy Options for Addressing Homelessness in Canada (e-book), J.D. Hulchanski et al., eds.: Toronto: Cities Centre, UofT.     Download PDF

         Homelessness has been called “an odd‐job word, pressed into service to impose order on a hodgepodge of social dislocation, extreme poverty, seasonal or itinerant work, and unconventional ways of life” (Hopper and Baumohl, 1996, p. 3). Why do we have such a term? Where did it come from? What does it mean? What does it conceal? These are all essential questions,

  3. Gaetz, S. et al. (2016) The State of Homelessness in Canada 2016, Toronto: Canadian Homelessness Research Network, Homeless Hub, Research Paper #11.   Download PDF

        Mass homelessness in Canada emerged in the 1980s, following a massive disinvestment in affordable housing, structural shifts in the economy and reduced spending on social supports. Since then, stakeholders across the country have tried and tested solutions to address the issue. These responses, largely based on the provision of emergency services, have prevented meaningful progress.

  4. Canada Advisory Committee on Homelessness (2018) Homelessness Final Report of the Advisory Committee, Ottawa. [part of the Liberal government's National Housing Strategy process]   Download PDF

        The Committee's recommendations for the Trudeau government's redesign of the Homelessness Partnering Strategy. 

  5. Jahiel, R.I. (1992) “Homeless-making Processes and the Homeless-Makers,” Chapter 18, R.I. Jahiel, ed., Homelessness: A Prevention-oriented Approach, Johns Hopkins U Press, 269-296.   Download PDF

        A few key questions are answered here. (1) What social processes (homeless-making processes) make people homeless?  (2) What social pressures (pressures toward homelessness) build or magnify these processes?  (3) Who are the people and which are the institutions (the homeless makers) that initiate or carry out these processes and pressures?  (4) What are the stakes of the homeless makers in homeless-making processes and the pressures toward homelessness?  (5) What resistance to anti-homelessness programs might be anticipated from homeless makers and other societal actors, and how might it be overcome?

  6. Greene, J. (2014). Urban restructuring, homelessness, and collective action in Toronto, 1980-2003. Urban History Review/Revue d'histoire urbaine, 21-37.     Download PDF

       One of the most visible manifestations of the uneven effects of economic restructuring was the emergence and consolidation of mass homelessness. This changing landscape of poverty, in turn, produced a new landscape of political activism. 

 

Supplemental (optional) Readings

  • Gaetz, S. (2010). The Struggle to End Homelessness in Canada: How we Created the Crisis, and How We Can End it. The Open Health Services and Policy Journal, 3, 21-26.     Download PDF

     

  • Schwan, K. et al. (2020). The State of Women’s Housing Need & Homelessness in Canada. Toronto: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press.   Download PDF

       

  • Gaetz, S. (2020). Making the Prevention of Homelessness a Priority: The Role of Social Innovation. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 79(2), 353-381.    Download PDF 

     

  • Guirguis-Younger, M., Hwang, S. W., & McNeil, R. (Eds.). (2014). Homelessness & health in Canada. University of Ottawa Press.     Download PDF

       

  • Bassuk, E. L., Hart, J. A., & Donovan, E. (2020) “Resetting Policies to End Family Homelessness,” Annual Review of Public Health, 41.   Download PDF

       

  • Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (2012) Canadian Definition of YOUTH Homelessness.   Download PDF

       

  • Wellesley Institute (2006) The Blueprint to End Homelessness in Toronto: A Two-part Action Plan. Toronto.   Download PDF

       

  • Canada, Senate Committee on Social Affairs (2009) In From the Margins: A Call to Action on Poverty, Housing and Homelessness. Ottawa.   Download PDF