HSD Engage explores right to remain

More than 4000 people live one step away from houselessness in privately owned buildings called Single Room Occupancy (SRO) housing in Vancouver's downtown Eastside.

For the past five years, the Right to Remain Research Collective has fought for community-controlled housing as SROs verge on collapse from decades of structural neglect. Jeff Masuda, a professor in the School of Public Health and Social Policy, led a panel discussion in May with members from the Right to Remain Research Collective.

"We want you to help us figure out how to get cities, provinces, territories and the federal government to step through this policy window and make bold policy decisions everyone knows are needed to get housing and land in the downtown Eastside back in the hands of the community," he said.

Winning the (long) fight for tenants’ rights in Vancouver’s Single Room Occupancy housing: Stories from the Right to Remain Research Collective was the Faculty of Human and Social Development’s second HSD Engage event. It brought together community members, activists, students, alumni and scholars at Kwench in downtown Victoria.

Dean Helga Hallgrímsdóttir said HSD’s commitment to research, teaching and scholarship that wants to make an impact sets the Faculty’s seven schools apart.

"HSD Engage is about bringing that scholarship to the community in ways that will not just showcase what we do but also I’m hoping that people will leave here motivated, motivated to learn more about how research makes change, how research is social action," she said.