This project aims to collect the oral testimonies of leaders in the struggle for housing justice across Canada. These are educational materials, bearing witness to the violence of dehousing. They reveal a movement characterized by plural voices, a strong commitment to collective freedom, and endless examples of creative interruption.

These materials are intended to assist in the passing on of practices, traditions, and stories within the housing justice movement. But they are also intended to educate the public about the housing crisis and the experience of dehousing. The educational force of storytelling re-orients the listener; we cannot return to the world we knew before hearing the witness. No, we must enter into a new praxis that accepts the charge before us—a charge to listen to the past, to listen to the other, and to pursue a world with space for everyone.

The oral history interviews collected here are done in collaboration with several organizations, most based in Toronto and Vancouver, active over the last 40 years. Some are no longer active, with others are part of more recent struggles for housing justice.

Organizations that have assisted with the development of this project include the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee (TDRC), Street Health Toronto, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), 230 Fightback, Sanctuary Toronto, the Toronto Underhoused and Homeless Union (TUHU), and many more.

This project is led by timothy martin, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Simon Fraser University, under the incredible supervision of Ann Chinnery in the Faculty of Education.

Cover photo: courtesy of the City of Toronto Archives (Nancy Baker, c. 2000).