Housing Distress in Winnipeg: Implications for Policy Programs and Services

Abstract

This is the Final Report of the research project “Structural Causes of Housing Distress in Winnipeg: Implications for Policy Programs and Services” undertaken by the Institute of Urban Studies on behalf of the National Secretariat on Homelessness (NS H). This research approaches the issue of homelessness from two interrelated world views: the first is that a person’s problematic relationship with access to shelter should be viewed along a continuum of “housing distress” from being safely housed to being absolutely homeless; and second, that the pathways through this journey be viewed in terms of their structural determinants, rather than personal risk factors. T he focus of this research is, as a result, oriented towards discovering themes that emerge from shared “lived experience” within social and political structures, naming those structures and confirming those themes embedded in the structures. The complexity of this approach is reflected in our review of literature, as well as our revised methodology.