Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. CC-BY-SA 4.0
The Language of Housing
Housing in Vancouver has long been a contentious topic. Terms like “housing crisis”, “renoviction” and “affordable housing” are increasingly pervasive in local media, neighbourhood chat groups, and casual conversation as a growing city navigates its growing pains.
Discover how some UBC researchers in cIRcle have tackled the role of language, policy, and representation at the heart of this pervasive, complex subject.
Research Behind the Headlines
Housing Language in Vancouver, Jordan Amron’s 2023 Masters of Geography thesis, “investigates how a language of housing redevelopment has worked in the (re)production of Vancouver, British Columbia over the last century.”
Project Inclusion, led by the Pivot Legal Society, “centr[es] and amplif[ies] the voices and experiences of people most affected by BC’s homelessness crisis and drug policy crisis”. Their work aims to identify the numerous “legal, policy-related and structural barriers” that perpetuate harm, and to propose a stigma audit process to address these obstacles. Read the full report: Project Inclusion : Confronting Anti-Homeless & Anti-Substance User Stigma in British Columbia.
Picture this : Exploring photovoice as a method to understand lived experiences in marginal neighbourhoods : [infographic] is a visual summary of a research article created by ASTU 100 students under UBC faculty supervision and in collaboration with the article’s author. The source article identifies community perspectives in the absence of co-design opportunities in the urban environment of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
The Way Back Machine
Those familiar with or interested in the Vancouver housing crisis of 1989 and the emergence of the Vancouver tenants’ movement will find relevant connections to current events in these retrospective theses from the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP):
Housing trends and the role of public policy in generating homelessness : a case study of Vancouver, British Columbia. (Leslie J. Gilbert, 1989).
Taking it to the streets : An activist’s story of the Vancouver housing crisis of 1989. (Roneen Marcoux, 1995).
Deposit Your Research
Do you have a research article or coursework that you’d like to archive in cIRcle? Visit our Submissions page for deposit instructions or contact us.
Further Reading
Ken Sim is Wrong. We need more supportive housing, not less. The Tyee. Accessed January 29, 2025.
Vancouver’s Housing Industry is both booming and struggling. Vancouver Sun. April 22, 2024.
Balanced Supply of Housing Research Node. Research papers, blog posts, and podcasts focused on equitable housing. Accessed January 29, 2025.