Building From Experience #2: Investigating Shelter (In)Justice in Peterborough

Peterborough’s housing and homelessness challenges are intensifying, and they are being compounded by health crises such as the drug poisoning epidemic, the COVID-19 pandemic and insufficient local mental health services. Amidst all of this, Peterborough residents find themselves navigating a housing and homelessness system that is stretched thin by underfunding. In the current environment, there is a risk that our community is not meeting its obligations under international human rights law to realize the progressive right to housing. 

It is in this context that our Building From Experience team, the BfE Super Crew, began its work in Fall 2021. (You can read about our first BfE team, the Youth Action Research Revolution, here.) 

The BfE Super Crew is responding to the local situation by documenting the rules and procedures that dictate how housing and shelter resources are distributed in Peterborough, as well as how the homelessness system works in practice for individuals engaging with it. The goal is to read these rules, procedures and experiences in the context of Canada’s declaration of housing as a human right. That way, the Super Crew can ascertain how far along Peterborough is in realizing the progressive right to housing. 

The BfE Super Crew is releasing its findings in a series of zines. The first zine was called Get In Line and it was released in summer 2022. Get In Line described how Peterborough’s coordinated access and emergency shelter systems are designed to work. 

After releasing their first zine, the BfE Super Crew proceeded to interview almost 50 people with lived experience of homelessness in Peterborough. The team wanted to take its learnings from their first zine and ask people with lived experience for their perspectives. Having studied how Peterborough’s housing and homelessness systems are designed to work, the Super Crew is now asking: How are these systems experienced by the people they are meant to serve? The stories and experiences that were shared by people with lived experience will form the Super Crew’s second zine, which they are working on now. Stay tuned!