Financialization of Multi-Family Housing / Tenant Organizing / What IS the Right to Housing? / What are your rights when renting?
Series Playlist on YouTube (AHSL Account: @-houselab9063)
The Financialization of Multi-Family Housing
Lunch & Learn (May 23/2023)
AHSL Principles
Resources & Information:
Presentation
• Slides (with presenter notes):
PowerPoint / PDF
• Links Shared during Lunch & Learn
AHSL Series
on the Financialization of Housing, including Multi-Family Housing
The financialization of housing has created a totally different relationship to housing than people have had in the past, where local housing is not owned by local people in a local community.
This has also been identified as a key driver of our housing crisis. The AHSL estimates that as of 2022, 48% of purpose built rental suites in Edmonton are financialized (methodology).
Featuring the AHSL’s own Joshua Evans & Laura Murphy, view the recording linked above to learn more about:
1) The AHSL’s recent findings on the financialization of purpose built rental housing in Edmonton
2) What this means for Edmonton
3) An opportunity to take action on this issue by sending a submission to the National Housing Council’s Federal Review Panel on the Financialization of Purpose-Built Rental Housing
✨new deadline: Aug 31, 2023✨
Contact: nationalhousingcouncil@cmhc-schl.gc.ca
Resources, Tools & Information to Support Submissions:
• Research Commissioned by the Federal Housing Advocate on the financialization of housing → all 5 reports here
• AHSL Series on the Financialization of Housing → including Multi-Family Housing
• Written Submission Guide
• Template for Individuals
• Template for Organizations
• Tips / Considerations
Realizing the Right To Housing Together:
Tenant Organizing
Evening Panel (Nov 30/2022)
AHSL Principles
Resources & Information:
Hamilton Tenants Solidarity Network
https://radicalhousingjournal.org/2019/rent-striking-the-reit/
https://www.facebook.com/hamiltontenantssolidarity/
Alberta ACORN
https://acorncanada.org/locations/alberta-acorn/
Herongate Tenant Coalition
https://herongatetenants.ca/
https://leveller.ca/2021/12/a-framework-for-destruction/
Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario
https://www.acto.ca/

Tenant empowerment is one way to access the right to adequate housing, and can be in many forms — including tenant organizing (Edmonton’s history. Yet tenants rarely organize, even in places where there is a legal right to form tenant associations.
This event explores where and how tenants have been organizing and mobilizing in Canada — featuring representatives from:
- Hamilton Tenants Solidarity Network
- Alberta ACORN
- Herongate Tenant Coalition
- Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario
Note: Given the nature of this topic and panel discussion, this event was not recorded. However, we shared back some of the key messages and information shared at the event.
What Is the Right to Housing?
Lunch & Learn (July 7/2021)
Access presentation slides here
Just like food, water and oxygen, housing is essential for human life – this is an indisputable fact. Yet there can still be confusion around what a rights-based approach to housing even is, what it means, and how it can be applied.
Rethinking and relearning what we know about housing, and through a rights-based lens, can be challenging. So we invited experts Michèle Biss (NRHN) and Alyssa Brierley (CERA) to speak about:
● What the right to housing means
● Where the right to housing came from
● How the right to housing can be claimed by marginalized and under-resourced groups in Canada
● What Canada’s new housing rights-claiming mechanisms look like
● How these new mechanisms can be used by individuals and organizations to achieve systemic change in the housing sector, so that everyone has access to a safe and adequate home


In Edmonton: What are your rights when renting?
Lunch & Learn (Feb 24/2021):
Hear from our invited panelists
Dr. Damian Collins (University of Alberta),
Sarah Eadie (Edmonton Community Legal Centre),
Roxanne Ulanicki (AHSL Fellow) &
Nadine Chalifoux (AHSL Fellow)
who discuss:
● What are we talking about when we refer to the right to adequate housing in Edmonton?
● How are these rights protected in Edmonton?
● What work remains to be done?
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