About
Canada's National Housing Strategy has placed a renewed focus on the needs of low- and moderate-income households.
The Challenge to be Addressed
As the number of baby boomers reaching age 65 grows, a key challenge for Canada is to determine how well existing housing policies are able to respond to the increase in the population of older adults. Recent Canadian data indicate that the growth rate of the population age 65 years and older will reach over 20% by 2024.The full extent of this demographic shift is not fully known but will likely create significant burdens on the health and social systems currently in place. A key issue in meeting the needs of the aging Canadian population is determining if housing policies, where they exist, are meeting the needs of more diverse and marginalized segments of older adults (55+) such as older lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) populations. This is a particularly pressing challenge in that many older LGBT adults live alone, do not have connections with their biological families, live in poverty and experience systematic discrimination and harassment across the life course, including in relation to housing, due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity and expression.
Goal and Objectives of the Proposed Partnership
Despite the importance of housing as reflected in the National Housing Strategy, some Canadian provinces have yet to create adequate housing policies for our growing aging populations, including marginalized and vulnerable segments of the aging population Given this, the goal of this 1-year Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant proposed partnership is to examine the existing housing policy knowledge gaps in relation to meeting the housing needs of older (55+) LGBT populations.
Our key objectives are to systematically identify existing knowledge gaps in relation to the intersection of key policy concerns of this demographic shift in Canada: housing and older LGBT adults.
The breadth of the Partnership, and the Meaningful Engagement of the Partner Organizations Involved
Our current partnership consists of an interdisciplinary group of researchers, graduate students, policy analysts, non-profit sectors, government partners, LGBT community members, including those with lived experience of homelessness or being precariously housed. Our partnership will bring about meaningful engagement in our collaborative examination of existing knowledge gaps in our understanding of housing policy-related issues facing older LGBT adults in the Canadian context. This proposed partnership reflects the evolution of our earlier funded work with partners from the Jean Monnet European Union Centre of Excellence (EUCE) where we undertook a housing policy review and conducted in-depth interviews at select EU housing facilities to examine the unique housing needs of older (55+) LGBT populations. Our team is interested in expanding this work to the Canadian context in an effort to address key housing disparities facing older LGBT adults.
With partners from Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia, we will be able to map a better national understanding of promising housing policies and programs with a particular emphasis on older LGBT populations. This partnership will help inform the Stage 2 SSHRC Partnership Grant to further develop a concrete, applied, and evidence-based, national program of LGBT housing research.