This week, Sheldon Pollett and Sherri Payne from Choices for Youth join us to talk about the groundbreaking new Employability Support Stability Pilot Program⁠—an innovative program designed to remove barriers to employment and help young people transition away from social assistance. They’ll share the inspiring story behind the program, provide updates on its progress, and discuss their vision for the future. You don’t want to miss it!

This week, President & CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, Tim Richter, joins us to discuss CAEH’s new proposal for a Homelessness Prevention and Housing Benefit⁠—a benefit that will provide immediate assistance for up to 435,000 people who are at risk of homelessness⁠. Learn more about how you and your community can be a part of this bold new initiative.

This week, we’re joined by Joshua Barndt, the Executive Director of The Neighbourhood Land Trust and the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust. Joshua shares how he and his team built up their impactful Community Land Trusts, and how others can start or build up theirs.

This week, we’re joined by Samantha Lobb, the Chair of the Youth Council for York Region’s Youth Homelessness Prevention and Housing Stabilization Strategy to discuss why it’s critical to have voices of youth at the table, leading the work on preventing youth homelessness, what it means to meaningfully engage with youth, and more!

This week, we’re joined by Victoria Barclay, an Action Researcher at Women Transforming Cities and a master’s student in the Department of Sociology at UBC to discuss her current research exploring how to improve access to housing for people fleeing gender-based violence, focusing on Indigenous, Black, and racialized women.

This week, we’re joined by Angela Schleihauf, the Senior Analyst on the Housing Supply Challenge team in CMHC’s Innovation and Partnerships division. Angela joins us to talk about the recently launched, fourth round of the Housing Supply Challenge: Building for the Future. Tune in to learn more about what the hopes are for the next iteration of this challenge and how you can apply to get involved!

Thank you CMHC for sponsoring this week’s podcast.

In this week’s episode, Chairperson of the National Advisory Council on Poverty, Scott MacAfee, joins us to chat about the findings from the Council’s recently released report, along with recommendations on how to move forward in efforts to reduce poverty across Canada.

When community member, Marc Boychuk, saw people freezing to death on the streets in Peace River, Alberta, he didn’t wait for others to take action, and instead became part of the solution. Marc joins us this week to discuss his incredible journey, how he does so much community work when he’s not at his full-time job, and the amazing strides forward his community has made, in large, due to his efforts.

In Markham, Ontario, a volunteer group called MICAH has been creating affordable housing for years in a unique and very scalable way. MICAH President, Mike Clare joins us this week on the pod to talk about how it all came to be, the many projects they’ve developed, and the projects they have their sights on for the future.

This week, we are doubling up on our experts as we discuss Ontario’s controversial “More Homes Built Faster Act” better known as Bill 23. John Fox, Managing Partner at Robins Appleby and Leilani Farha, Global Director at The Shift join us to discuss what challenges this new Bill poses and how it could be improved moving forward.