Home as Resistance – Black Women and the Cost of Belonging in Canada

Housing Justice in Motion

Season 3 Episode 6 In the season finale of She.They.Us., host Andrea Reimer closes this chapter with Jayne Malenfant, a non-binary researcher and advocate based at McGill University whose story brings together everything we’ve heard this season about housing precarity, belonging, and survival. From growing up in Northern Ontario to navigating hidden homelessness, couch surfing, and unsafe housing, Jayne shares what it means to live inside systems that were never designed for women and gender-diverse people to thrive. Jayne’s lived experience and research reveal how housing insecurity often hides in plain sight in overcrowded apartments, unstable arrangements, and the quiet fear of losing shelter. They explore how gender-diverse people, especially youth, face unique pathways into homelessness through family rejection, discrimination in the rental market, and the lack of safe, affirming housing options. At the heart of their work is a powerful truth - home is not just a place, but a feeling of safety, dignity, and being seen. This episode moves beyond the failures of the system to highlight what communities have built instead: mutual aid, chosen families, peer-led housing, and informal care networks that Jayne calls “housing justice in motion.” Together, Andrea and Jayne unpack concepts like agency, choice, and “radical imagining” - the practice of dreaming beyond what feels politically possible to envision housing systems that are truly just, human, and inclusive. As the season closes, Andrea and writer-producer Linda Rourke reflect on the stories shared across the series — stories not of victimhood, but of resistance, creativity, and leadership. This final conversation is an invitation to listeners to see housing not just as policy, but as relationship, responsibility, and collective care and to believe that a system built for all of us is not only necessary, but possible. The last word goes to the women and gender-diverse people we’ve heard from this season. We pull together their hopes and dreams for housing, belonging and justice, and the impact they hope their stories will have on listeners and policy makers. Guests * Jayne Malenfant is a non-binary researcher at McGill University studying the past, present and future of queer and trans youth homelessness through lived experience and radical imagination. Plus voices from across Season 3: * Marie McGregor Pitawanakwat (Episode 1) * Pamela Spurvey (Episode 2) * Monique Courcelles (Episode 2) * Carolyn Whitzman (Episode 3) * Jennifer Smith (Episode 3) * Jill Kelly (Episode 3) * Stephanie Allen (Episode 4) * Elvenia Grace Sandeford (Episode 4) * Dr. Fadhilah Balugu (Episode 4) * Dara Dillon (Episode 4) * Catherine Clement (Episode 5) * Ceta Ramkhalawansingh (Episode 5) * Adeem Younis (Episode 5) Music by: Reid Jamieson & CVM, from The Pigeon & The Dove, an original folk opera about housing insecurity and the many roads you can take to end up on the street.  https://linktr.ee/reidjamieson [https://linktr.ee/reidjamieson] Organizations Mentioned in the Podcast * Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing — https://pcvwh.ca [https://pcvwh.ca] * MyCasa MTL - https://mycasamtl.com/mycasa/ [https://mycasamtl.com/mycasa/]  Ways to Take Action * Learn more about the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing: pcvwh.ca * Follow and tag us at @voice4housing * Share this episode * Learn about the experiences of gender-diverse folks and housing in Canada. This is a great place to start: https://caeh.ca/pride-housing-for-gender-diverse/ [https://caeh.ca/pride-housing-for-gender-diverse/]  * Interested in sharing your own story or building your advocacy skills? Explore PCVWH’s training programs for women and gender-diverse people: pcvwh.ca/training * Whether you have lived experience of the housing crisis or stand alongside those who do, your voice matters — join a local housing advocacy group, speak at a council meeting, or connect with your MP or MLA to push for change. We have tools and resources that can help Credits Produced in collaboration with Everything Podcasts. Host: Andrea Reimer Producer & Writer: Linda Rourke Sound Engineer: Jordan Wong Senior Account Director: Lisa Bishop Executive Producer: Jennifer Smith Project Partner: Ange Valentini, Strategic Impact Collective Project Coordinator: Monica Deng, Pan-Canadian Voice for Housing Social Media Jayne - @mcgilleducation

I Refuse to Disappear: Racialized Women Fighting for Space in Canada

Season 3 Episode 5 I Refuse to Disappear: Racialized Women Fighting for Space in Canada In this episode of She They Us, host Andrea Reimer continues the series exploring how women and gender-diverse people create belonging in housing systems that were never designed for them. Building on the previous episode’s conversation with four Black women, Andrea traces the deeper roots of Canada’s housing inequities, roots grounded not in a neutral “free market,” but in policy choices about who was permitted to belong. In this episode, she turns to the histories of Chinese immigration in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and then those racialized women who came from the 1960s onward after decades of exclusion in Canadian immigration policy. Their experiences  as Chinese, Indo-Caribbean and Palestinian women reveal how exclusion, displacement, and segregation shaped not only neighbourhoods, but generations of families seeking safety, stability, and home. Andrea speaks first with Catherine Clement, a community historian whose work on Chinese-Canadian memory awakened her own connection to a heritage she had long pushed aside. Catherine walks us through the stark realities of the Chinese Exclusion Act and head tax era: a bachelor society of nearly 50,000 men and just over 1,300 women, forced family separation, and housing conditions so grim that many preferred the street to the overcrowded rooms where up to four men shared a single bed. She reveals how the effects of those laws continued long after repeal, through lingering prejudice, restricted mobility, and the silence families carried as they tried to build new lives in a country that had kept them at the margins. The episode then shifts to Toronto, where Ceta Ramkhalawansingh, an immigrant from Trinidad, describes how she became an “accidental housing activist” in 1971 when her student co-op discovered that their entire block was slated for redevelopment. What followed was a years-long organizing effort; students, newcomers, draft dodgers, and working-class tenants pushing back against absentee landlords, neglected repairs, and powerful landowners. Ceta’s story is ultimately one of community power: how ordinary neighbours challenged a system designed to erase them, and in doing so, transformed the landscape of housing rights in Canada’s largest city. Andrea also sits down with Adeem Younis, an architect from Gaza whose journey to Canada began as a temporary fellowship abroad and turned into an unexpected flight from war with nothing but the clothes she was wearing. Landing in a country where she knew no one, Adeem ran a gauntlet of homelessness, unsafe rentals, and months of bed-bug-infested rooms before finally securing a small apartment she has since transformed into a vibrant, colourful home filled with plants, memories of Palestine, and the scent of food that reminds her she is still alive, still rooted. Today, she works with newcomers, refugees, and asylum seekers—many of them women fleeing violence, war, and impossible choices—offering the support she once longed for. Adeem’s story brings the episode into the present, revealing how displacement, dignity, and the search for safety continue to shape the lives of women arriving in Canada right now, and how courage becomes its own form of belonging. Guests * Catherine Clement is a community historian, author, and curator whose work excavates Chinese-Canadian memory and history. A former Vancouver Foundation executive and communications leader, she’s now bringing the untold stories of Chinese-Canadians to life through exhibitions and books. * Ceta Ramkhalawansingh is an Indo-Caribbean city builder, feminist, and housing activist. She spent 30 years at Toronto City Hall introducing groundbreaking equity and human rights policies, served as Toronto City Councillor, and continues organizing for social housing and community power in her neighborhood * Adeem Younis is a Palestinian architect, community developer, and settlement worker. Originally from Gaza, she now supports refugees and asylum seekers—particularly women fleeing violence—as they navigate housing, integration, and rebuilding lives with dignity in British Columbia. Music by: Reid Jamieson & CVM, from The Pigeon & The Dove, an original folk opera about housing insecurity and the many roads you can take to end up on the street.  https://linktr.ee/reidjamieson [https://linktr.ee/reidjamieson] Organizations Mentioned in the Podcast * Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing — https://pcvwh.ca [https://pcvwh.ca] * The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act by Catherine Clement - https://literasian.com/catherine-clement/ [https://literasian.com/catherine-clement/]  * Women and Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto (a short history) - https://magazine.utoronto.ca/research-ideas/culture-society/revolutionary-road-women-rights-social-activism-margaret-webb/ [https://magazine.utoronto.ca/research-ideas/culture-society/revolutionary-road-women-rights-social-activism-margaret-webb/]  * DIVERSEcity Community Resources Society - https://www.dcrs.ca/ [https://www.dcrs.ca/]  Ways to Take Action * Learn more about the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing: pcvwh.ca * Follow and tag us at @voice4housing * Share this episode * Learn about these histories. There are so many places to learn more but some good places to start: check out Catherine’s new book, read about Ceta’s incredible career, and visit DIVERSEcity Community Resources Society to learn more about how new generations of immigrant and refugee women are making space in Canada. * Interested in sharing your own story or building your advocacy skills? Explore PCVWH’s training programs for women and gender-diverse people: pcvwh.ca/training * Whether you have lived experience of the housing crisis or stand alongside those who do, your voice matters — join a local housing advocacy group, speak at a council meeting, or connect with your MP or MLA to push for change. We have tools and resources that can help Credits Produced in collaboration with Everything Podcasts. Host: Andrea Reimer Producer & Writer: Linda Rourke Sound Engineer: Jordan Wong Senior Account Director: Lisa Bishop Executive Producer: Jennifer Smith Project Partner: Ange Valentini, Strategic Impact Collective Project Coordinator: Monica Deng, Pan-Canadian Voice for Housing Social Media https://www.linkedin.com/in/adeemahmadyounis/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/adeemahmadyounis/] #podcast #housing

Home as Resistance – Black Women and the Cost of Belonging in Canada

Season 3 Episode 4 Andrea begins the episode with housing advocate and urban scholar Stephanie Allen, a Black woman born and raised in Canada, who helps unearth the often-obscured history behind housing systems in North America. Stephanie traces how urban planning, real estate practices, and colonial policy have long excluded and displaced Black communities, even when those policies were presented as neutral. She shares her own path from real estate development into social-justice-focused urban research, illuminating the deep structural roots of today’s inequities. Together, she and Andrea explore why Black women in particular face compounded barriers at the intersections of racism, sexism, and economic inequality. Stephanie reflects on the role of home as a place of safety, resistance, and cultural identity within Black communities—and why meaningful change now requires political courage, from those in government to everyday citizens, to treat housing as a human right for all rather than a commodity. Next, we meet Elvenia Grace Sandiford, who immigrated from Jamaica in the late ’80s and has spent decades working on the front lines in crisis centres and transition houses. Through supporting women escaping violence, she has seen firsthand how deeply housing shapes every aspect of a woman’s life, from safety and health to family stability. She also highlights how Black women are routinely left out of the data and policy decisions that shape housing systems. Elvenia shares deeply personal experiences of discrimination she has faced in her work, from job opportunities denied because she was a Black woman to hostility while supporting survivors. Through her organization, Harambee Alliance, she works to make visible the housing precarity that often remains hidden, particularly for Black women who move quietly from couch to couch, uncounted and unsupported. Even today, with a new degree in hand and a lifetime of experience in her field, she faces Vancouver’s high costs and a labour market that continues to undervalue her. We then hear from Dr. Fadhilah Balugu, who arrived from Nigeria two decades ago only to discover her medical credentials were not recognized in Canada. She describes the painful experience of being reduced to “a Black woman” in professional spaces, and how she rebuilt her purpose through service and community leadership. Today, she leads the African Women’s Alliance of Waterloo Region, supporting newcomers who face racism, isolation, and housing instability. Having relied on rent-geared-to-income housing herself, Fadhilah understands the critical role stable housing plays in a family’s ability to heal, work, and thrive. She sees daily how discrimination, unsafe rental conditions, and rising costs disproportionately affects newcomers and especially those that are  single mothers in her community—women who are asked to carry the weight of a system that was never built with them in mind. Finally, Dara Dillon shares her experience arriving in Canada in 2020 with her young son. Once she and her partner left university housing, they endured eight months of anti-Black, anti-immigrant, and anti-queer discrimination in their housing search. Landlords questioned her employment, agents tried to steer them away from certain neighbourhoods, and the scrutiny was so intense that they often hid their relationship to avoid bias. They eventually found a place only because the landlords chose not to demand credit checks or personal disclosures. Even with two master’s degrees and extensive leadership experience, Dara continues to be offered only low-level jobs, making homeownership and sometimes even stable renting, out of reach. Her story underscores that housing inequity is not just about affordability; it’s about racism, gatekeeping, and who gets access to opportunity. Dara’s hope is simple. Access to good jobs, capital, and ownership so Black families can build security instead of being shut out of it. These voices close the episode with a shared truth: naming discrimination is labour but unfortunately still vital labour to catalyze change. And it’s a reminder of why these stories matter as we continue our series on the history of women and housing. Guests * Stephanie Allen is a Vancouver-based housing advocate, researcher, and systems builder whose work advances racial equity in urban planning and supports Black communities in reclaiming land, safety, and belonging. * Elvenia Gray-Sandiford is a longtime housing advocate, community worker and recent founder of Harambee Alliance, an organization focused on health and safety for Black women as they age * Dr. Fadhilah Balugu is Executive Director of the African Women’s Alliance of Waterloo Region, supporting newcomer women of African descent navigating housing and systemic barriers in the Waterloo region * Dara Dillon a Caribbean-born, Canadian-based strategist, speaker, and systems builder who helps organizations and founders move from chaos to clarity with bold strategy and human-centered storytelling. Music by: Reid Jamieson & CVM, from The Pigeon & The Dove, an original folk opera about housing insecurity and the many roads you can take to end up on the street.  https://linktr.ee/reidjamieson [https://linktr.ee/reidjamieson] Organizations Mentioned in the Podcast * Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing — https://pcvwh.ca [https://pcvwh.ca] * Hogan’s Alley Society (Vancouver) - https://www.hogansalleysociety.org [https://www.hogansalleysociety.org] * African Women’s Alliance of Waterloo Region - https://afrowomen.ca [https://afrowomen.ca]  * Harambee Alliance for Health, Wellness & Aging Society https://www.facebook.com/HarambeeAHWASociety [https://www.facebook.com/HarambeeAHWASociety]                                  Ways to Take Action * Learn more about the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing: pcvwh.ca * Follow and tag us at @voice4housing * Share this episode * Find out more about the history of Black women in Canada and how historical experiences shape modern realities * Interested in sharing your own story or building your advocacy skills? Explore PCVWH’s training programs for women and gender-diverse people: pcvwh.ca/training * Whether you have lived experience of the housing crisis or stand alongside those who do, your voice matters — join a local housing advocacy group, speak at a council meeting, or connect with your MP or MLA to push for change. We have tools and resources that can help Credits Produced in collaboration with Everything Podcasts. Host: Andrea Reimer Producer & Writer: Linda Rourke Sound Engineer: Jordan Wong Senior Account Director: Lisa Bishop Executive Producer: Jennifer Smith Project Partner: Ange Valentini, Strategic Impact Collective Project Coordinator: Monica Deng, Pan-Canadian Voice for Housing Social Media * Elvenia   * https://www.link... [https://www.linkedin.com/in/elvenia-gray-sandiford]

When Money Isn’t Money - Women and the Myth of the “Free Market”

Season 3 Episode 3 In this episode of She.They.Us., we widen the lens on our core question this season: Did housing ever truly work for women and gender-diverse people in Canada? After exploring the historical and ongoing housing experiences of Indigenous women, Two-Spirit, and gender-diverse people in previous episodes, we now turn to settler women, beginning with White women, whose stories reveal a different, but no less instructive, relationship to the so-called “free market.” While often positioned as beneficiaries of Canada’s economic and housing systems, White women have also faced structural constraints, exclusion, and gendered assumptions that shaped their access to land, loans, mortgages, and stability. To help ground this history, Andrea speaks first with Dr. Carolyn Whitzman, a leading housing researcher whose work uncovers the overlooked role White settler women played, sometimes as landowners, small-scale developers, or rooming-house operators, in shaping early urban neighbourhoods. Carolyn traces how White women’s economic survival strategies, such as renting rooms or subdividing homes, collided with gendered moral panic and restrictive zoning that policed who could live together and what counted as a “proper” family. She also shares her own family’s history of renting from women landlords in Montreal, revealing the informal, woman-led housing ecosystems that quietly supported generations of tenants before being eroded by condoization and policy shifts. Andrea then introduces Jennifer Smith, CEO and founder of Everything Podcasts, whose personal story starkly illustrates how even today, White women, especially queer women, can be denied equal access to financial systems. Jenn recounts being refused a mortgage by her longtime bank solely because she and her wife were a same-sex couple, despite high incomes and previous homeownership. Her experience echoes her grandmother’s decades earlier, when she, too, was denied a mortgage as a single immigrant woman and had to rely on a male intermediary to buy a rooming house. Through Jenn’s family history—from social housing in Toronto’s Jamestown to becoming a homeowner at 19—we see how gender, class, and sexual orientation intersect to shape what should be a simple transaction: securing a place to live. Finally, Andrea brings in Jill Kelly, former longtime manager of CCEC Credit Union, an institution that became a lifeline for women, queer couples, newcomers, and low-income borrowers who were shut out of traditional banking. Jill offers a rare look at how a community-driven financial model, one that refused to discriminate, helped women secure mortgages, fund co-ops, launch organizations, and navigate an economic system never designed with them in mind. Together, the stories of Carolyn, Jenn, and Jill expose a powerful through line: when women are treated as full economic actors, when their money is simply money, outcomes improve. But when gendered assumptions shape access to land, credit, and capital, the consequences reverberate across generations. Guests Dr. Carolyn Whitzman, Adjunct Professor and Senior Housing Researcher, University of Toronto’s School of Cities Jennifer Smith, CEO and Founder of Everything Podcasts Jill Kelly, Former long-time General Manager of CCEC Credit Union Music by: Reid Jamieson & CVM, from The Pigeon & The Dove, an original folk opera about housing insecurity and the many roads you can take to end up on the street.  https://linktr.ee/reidjamieson Organizations Mentioned in the Podcast * Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing —https://pcvwh.ca [https://pcvwh.ca] * Office of the Federal Housing Advocate —https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/individuals/right-housing/federal-housing-advocate   [https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/individuals/right-housing/federal-housing-advocate] * Maytree Foundation —https://maytree.com [https://maytree.com] * CMHC Solution Labs —https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/professionals/project-funding-and-mortgage-financing/funding-programs/all-funding-programs/solution-labs [https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/professionals/project-funding-and-mortgage-financing/funding-programs/all-funding-programs/solution-labs] * Everything Podcasts —https://www.everythingpodcasts.com [https://www.everythingpodcasts.com] * OUTtv —https://outtvglobal.com [https://outtvglobal.com] * Community Savings Credit Union (formerly CCEC) —https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/08/17/2500358/0/en/CCEC-Credit-Union-Membership-Votes-to-Merge-with-Community-Savings-Credit-Union.html [https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/08/17/2500358/0/en/CCEC-Credit-Union-Membership-Votes-to-Merge-with-Community-Savings-Credit-Union.html] Ways to Take Action * Learn more about the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing: pcvwh.ca * Follow and tag us at @voice4housing * Share this episode * Find out more about your current financial institution’s lending policies and consider supporting your local credit union. * Interested in sharing your own story or building your advocacy skills? Explore PCVWH’s training programs for women and gender-diverse people: pcvwh.ca/training * Whether you have lived experience of the housing crisis or stand alongside those who do, your voice matters — join a local housing advocacy group, speak at a council meeting, or connect with your MP or MLA to push for change. We have tools and resources that can help Social Media * PCVWH - @voice4housing * Carolyn Whitzman - @carolynwhitzman * Everything Podcasts - @everythingpodcastsstudios * CCEC - Community Savings - @comsavings * Reid Jamieson & CVM - @reidjamiesonmusic Credits Produced in collaboration with Everything Podcasts. Host: Andrea Reimer Producer & Writer: Linda Rourke Sound Engineer: Jordan Wong Senior Account Director: Lisa Bishop Executive Producer: Jennifer Smith Project Partner: Ange Valentini, Strategic Impact Collective Project Coordinator: Monica Deng, Pan-Canadian Voice for Housing Guest Bios Dr. Carolyn Whitzman is a housing and social policy researcher. She is an Adjunct Professor and Senior Housing Researcher at University of Toronto’s School of Cities, undertaking research on scaling up affordable and nonmarket housing supply. She has worked as an expert advisor to UBC’sHousing Assessment Resource Tools (HART) project, which developed standardized best practices for analyzing housing need, using government land for nonmarket housing, and nonmarket property acquisition, all of which has influenced federal policy. Carolyn is the author, co-author or lead editor of six books, including Home Truths: Fixing Canada’s Housing Crisis (2024) and Clara at the Door with a Revolver: the scandalous Black suspect, the exemplary white son, and the murder that shocked Toronto (2023). She has provided expertise to national, state/provincial and local governments, UN Women, UN Habitat, and private and non-profit organizations. Jennifer Smith is the CEO and Founder ...

We Can’t Just All Go Home

Season 3 Episode 2 In this episode, we continue exploring the context behind Canada’s housing crisis — especially for women and gender-diverse people. While many conversations on housing focus on how systems “used to work,” the truth is that since settlers arrived finding safe and secure housing for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit households has never been straightforward. We break down the distinctions between First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, and turn our attention to the more than 80% of Indigenous people in Canada who now live off their home territories - referred to as “urban Indigenous people” - often without access to the land, community, or cultural supports that shape belonging. We meet Pamela Spurvey, an urban Indigenous woman and Sixties Scoop survivor, who opens up about what it was like to grow up displaced, move through the foster care system, survive addiction, and fight her way back to her children. As she tells her story, she reflects on what really makes a home, not just a place to stay, but a place where you feel safe and rooted. She talks about how instability can shape everything from your identity to your mental health, and the added barriers Indigenous mothers face when they’re trying to bring their kids out of care. She also highlights how cultural reconnection, supportive women, and community organizations helped her rebuild her life, and why systems must shift toward strength-based approaches that value lived experience. Then we have Monique, a Métis and Two-Spirit person from Red River Métis and Treaty 1 territory. Monique’s story spans seven provinces and a lifetime of relocations shaped by survival, relationships, cultural identity, and the search for a place that truly feels like home. They confront misconceptions about Métis identity and describe what it was like to leave home at 16 and navigate housing that was often unstable or unsafe. Monique reflects on the emotional toll of constantly shifting housing, the effort to maintain agency and belonging, and the importance of creating a home that reflects who you are. Their story also sheds light on how housing precarity becomes even more complex for gender-diverse Indigenous people. Both Pamela and Monique remind us that housing isn’t just physical — it’s where you’re seen, where you’re safe, and where your story belongs. And for many Indigenous people, historical displacement, colonial systems, and modern barriers make this much more complicated than geography. In the next episode we’re moving on to families who came over from Europe years ago, and how those experiences have shaped the challenges and barriers for White women to access housing in Canada today. Guests in order of appearance: Pamela Spurvey (Urban Indigenous woman, Treaty 6 — Beaver Lake Cree Nation) Featuring Monique Courcelles (Métis & Two-Spirit) Music: A special thank you to Reid Jamieson and CVM for providing some of the music throughout the episode. www.reidjamieson.com Your host, Andrea Reimer, is a housing advocate, educator, and former Vancouver City Councillor who’s experienced homelessness firsthand. Since 2019, she has been an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. Andrea has spent her career at the intersection of power, policy, and courage to catalyze transformative change and here, she brings that passion to the stories of women and housing across Canada.