We might not often think of Appraisers as an important part of keeping housing affordable, but they absolutely play a large part. Eric Tworo, President of the Ontario Association of the Appraisal Institute of Canada joins us on the pod to talk about the role appraisers play in housing, how they help to keep it affordable, what skills are involved and how there are unique pieces to appraising affordable housing, and lastly how the non-profit sector is a growth area for the profession moving forward.

Ian Arthur, President and COO of Nidus3D, a 3D builder home construction, joins us to talk about the technology, how it can help address our housing crisis, the challenges it might bring, the projects they have completed or are working on, and his hopes for the future with 3D printing technology in building affordable homes faster.

Ashley Travis, from the PEI Humane Society joins us to talk about the challenges in her province around housing vulnerable individuals whose families include pets. Current policy allows landlords to choose to not rent to individuals with pets, and this has resulted in more pets needing sheltering with the Humane society, and a traumatic separating of people from their pets. Ashley talks about what needs to happen to change this trend, and some of the pieces her organization is doing to support individuals going through this experience

This week we are joined by Ray Sullivan the Executive Director of the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, and Katie Maslechko, the CEO of Rental Protection Fund in BC. They along with two other partners, have come together to form a coalition called the “Canadian Housing Acquisition Fund”, or “Canadian Housing AF”. We talk about the need for acquiring affordable housing and not just building new, how in BC they’ve done a provincial version of this already with great success, and how the ask of $2.5 billion hopes to create 10,000 new affordable housing units over the next 2 years. It’s one pod you don’t want to miss.

Over the last 6 years, BC Housing has built more housing than any other government agency in Canada. Sara Goldvine, the Vice President of Equity and Corporate Affairs at BC Housing joins us to talk about this work, the challenges they face and how they overcome them (ie. NIMBYISM), and what the future looks like for the organization.

This week we are joined by housing experts Steffan Jones and Jolene Livingston, two of the leads in the newly formed Partners for Affordable Housing a long-term framework that works with non-profit providers, private, public and philanthropic partners seeking solutions to one of Canada’s most pressing social crises to secure more funding, innovate and ideate, increase awareness, offer expertise, and help to share the risk in developing affordable housing.

This week we are thrilled to be joined by Andrea Reimer and Khulud Baig to talk about the Intersectional Feminist Housing Agenda. We chat about how it came about, why it’s so important to have a gender lens on housing and homelessness, what their hopes are for the agenda, who their partners are and how others can get involved.

Housing and Homelessness consultant and researcher Nick Falvo joins us once again on the podcast to talk about his incredible open access text book covering all things housing and homelessness. We talk about how his early years in front line work inspired the text book, why it was important for it to be free and accessible to anyone interested, what’s covered in the text, and much, much more. It’s a conversation you won’t want to miss!

This week I’m joined by Dr. Melanie Doucet to talk about her work leading the the Equitable Transitions to Adulthood and a Just Pandemic Recovery for Youth in Care project alongside the National Council of Youth in Care Advocates. We talk about how Dr. Doucet’s lived experience has shaped her work and leadership, what she’s learned so far with the project, and her hopes for policy reform in Child Welfare moving forward.

This week we talk with Joe Deschênes Smith, one of the founders of Trillium Housing, who has been working for over 10 years on a mortgage model that brings affordability and access to people wanting to own a home. We talk about Joe’s journey through politics into the world of affordable housing, how he started up Trillium, what’s happened so far, and his hopes for the future.