I'm excited to announce my new residency taking place over the next three years. Ill be working to raise the voices of those lacking housing in hope to raise compassion and support for supportive housing, harm reduction, and more. The official description is below!
Changing the Conversation
Re-envisioning Narrative Engagement about Housing Insecurity in Communities
ABOUT THE PROJECT:
Communities across Canada are experiencing a housing crisis involving rising unaffordability,
housing insecurity, and homelessness. One of the key challenges to increasing the supply of
various types of affordable, social, and supportive housing to address this crisis is a lack of
consensus in communities about the need for this housing; indeed, opposition to specific
projects in public discourse can often outweigh broader discussion about the needs of the
community as whole. This dynamic can hinder municipalities from developing an adequate
supply of socially-beneficial housing and supportive services. This project examines how a
broad set of public spaces can facilitate a healthier discourse about housing in the community
that prioritizes the perspectives of those with lived and living experience of housing insecurity as
a lived expertise and that uses arts-based engagement to develop new narratives focusing on
the value of the community coming together to support affordable housing for everyone.
The core goal of this project is to explore how to build a greater sense of solidarity in
communities around solutions to the housing crisis that prioritize the perspectives of lived
experts and that develop inclusive narratives that speak to both the minds and hearts of
community members. To achieve this goal, the project has two primary objectives: first, to
understand the challenges involved in building greater consensus by looking at the barriers
experienced by lived experts and at the narratives that drive opposition to affordable housing
projects within the community; and second, to generate transformative impacts that build
greater consensus about the need for affordable housing in the community through providing
more opportunities for lived experts to influence housing discourse and by running an arts-
based public advocacy campaign that encourages the community to come together to support
affordable housing in all neighbourhoods. The lessons learned from the implementation and
evaluation of this project will be communicated to policy-makers, academics, community
organizations, and others with an interest in how municipalities can revise and supplement their
existing engagement structures to use a broader set of community spaces in innovative ways to
generate a healthier public dialogue about issues related to housing insecurity.
