Webinar event date: 
avr 14, 2022 12:00 pm EDT
Webinar Presenters: 

Kaitlin Schwan, PhD (she/her)

National Director of the Women’s National Housing & Homelessness Network

Dr. Kaitlin Schwan (she/her) is National Director of the Women’s National Housing and Homelessness Network and a Senior Researcher at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. She teaches social policy at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Social Work, where she is appointed Assistant Professor, Status Only. She is the former Senior Researcher for the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing and Director of Research for The Shift. Dr. Schwan’s research focuses on homelessness prevention and human rights, particularly for women and youth. She uses research to build bridges between evidence, advocacy, policy, and lived expertise to advance housing justice. Reach her at kschwan@edu.yorku.ca.

 

Alex Nelson, PhD Candidate (they/them)

Community Outreach Coordinator for the National Right to Housing Network

Alex Nelson (they/them) is the Community Outreach Coordinator for the National Right to Housing Network, and a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Western University. Alex’s research explores gender, homelessness, disability, and housing policy – specifically focusing on the ways in which gender-diverse people with lived experience of homelessness mobilize their experiences to reform policy. Alex’s academic research and community involvement is deeply informed by their lived experience of homelessness and involvement in the child welfare system, as well as their experiences at the intersection of queerness and disability. As an advocate, Alex works to advance the role of people with lived experience and in realizing the right to housing. Alex is a member of the Vote Housing national campaign council, and currently serves on the steering committees of both the Canadian Lived Experience Leadership Network, and the Women’s National Housing and Homelessness Network. Alex is also a member of the Making the Shift Scholars with Lived Experience Network, and the Child Welfare Political Action Committee.

Description

Many women, girls, and gender-diverse persons in Canada continue to live in insecure or unsafe housing due to inequity and discrimination. These groups experience disproportionate levels of core housing need and poverty. In the midst of few housing options and overwhelmed emergency shelters, many women and gender-diverse people rely on informal networks for housing or engage in dangerous survival strategies to meet their needs. For many the result is trauma, intergenerational poverty, poor health and mental health, and separation from family, communities, and supports. 

In this webinar we explore the current challenges facing women and gender-diverse persons in Canada with respect to housing, highlighting policy failures that have resulted in disproportionate housing need for this group. We highlight how new federal legislation enshrining the right to housing in Canada might change housing outcomes for women and gender-diverse people, and what a better path forward could look like. . 

Webinar Objectives 
· Examine the current housing challenges experienced by women and gender-diverse persons in Canada, highlighting intersectional inequities and policy failures
· Explore how new federal legislation on the right to housing might change housing outcomes for women and gender-diverse persons
· Highlight key areas for policy and practice change that could improve housing outcomes and reduce homelessness amongst women and gender-diverse persons