Sustaining a Living, Inclusive and Creative City

Project summary: 9 pp.; ill., digital file.This project linked the Institute of Urban Studies with the broader community in Winnipeg and Saskatoon for the purpose of participating in the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, the theme of which is "Better City, Better Life." Using a community learning framework, the University of Winnipeg’s Institute of Urban Studies, Art City and the Saskatoon Community Youth Arts Programming Inc. (SCYAP) collaborated to visualize and document a prairie perspective on the themes of Expo 2010. Using multiple mediums and forms of interaction, the project team engaged with children and youth in both cities to create different forms of artistic expression on the theme of city life on the Canadian prairies. These efforts were documented on an evolving website titled “Living Prairie City” (http://ius.typepad.com/living_prairie_city/), and culminated with the production of public art slated for eventual installation.Department of Canadian Heritag

Housing Distress in Winnipeg: Implications for Policy Programs and Services

report: 59 pp.; ill., digital file.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.National Secretariat on Homelessness (NSH

Downtown Winnipeg: Developments and Investments, 2005-2013

Over the last eight years, Winnipeg’s downtown has been on a rapid upswing with investment eclipsing an estimated $2 billion dollars. What has changed? Where is investment heading? This IUS In-Brief explores these questions by collecting and mapping the changes that have taken place during this frenzied period of development. The mapping of this activity is striking and gives strong representation to the diversity of development with the ensuing spatial pattern reinventing the look and feel of downtown

Long-range correlation energy calculated from coupled atomic response functions

An accurate determination of the electron correlation energy is essential for describing the structure, stability, and function in a wide variety of systems, ranging from gas-phase molecular assemblies to condensed matter and organic/inorganic interfaces. Even small errors in the correlation energy can have a large impact on the description of chemical and physical properties in the systems of interest. In this context, the development of efficient approaches for the accurate calculation of the long-range correlation energy (and hence dispersion) is the main challenge. In the last years a number of methods have been developed to augment density functional approximations via dispersion energy corrections, but most of these approaches ignore the intrinsic many-body nature of correlation effects, leading to inconsistent and sometimes even qualitatively incorrect predictions. Here we build upon the recent many-body dispersion (MBD) framework, which is intimately linked to the random-phase approximation for the correlation energy. We separate the correlation energy into short-range contributions that are modeled by semi-local functionals and long-range contributions that are calculated by mapping the complex all-electron problem onto a set of atomic response functions coupled in the dipole approximation. We propose an effective range-separation of the coupling between the atomic response functions that extends the already broad applicability of the MBD method to non-metallic materials with highly anisotropic responses, such as layered nanostructures. Application to a variety of high-quality benchmark datasets illustrates the accuracy and applicability of the improved MBD approach, which offers the prospect of first-principles modeling of large structurally complex systems with an accurate description of the long-range correlation energy.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure

Beyond a Front Desk: The Residential Hotel as Home

This report is based on a comprehensive analysis of Winnipeg’s single room occupancy hotels. In developing and writing the report, an emphasis was placed on ensuring that the voices of SRO residents were heard and that they would identify and characterize their own realties. This was accomplished in a number of ways. First, a case study of Winnipeg hotels was undertaken, with field research including not only surveys, but also building trust among local residents. During the course of this fieldwork, researchers were able to become comfortable with the area and its people, while also developing a sense of the issues affecting hotel residents, owners and the surrounding community. Observations were drawn from a diverse set of downtown hotels that encompassed a region stretching from Broadway Boulevard on the south to Selkirk Avenue on the north. In total, eighty-one surveys were completed in nearly fifteen hotels, offering broad and contrasting perspectives on life in an SRO. The research was approached from three perspectives - the people who live in their rooms, the physical characteristics of the hotels (the bars, restaurants and common spaces), and the surrounding community. The goal was to determine whether SROs are an important form of affordable shelter. It was also our intent to determine whether practical solutions exist that could contribute to creating the best possible accommodation in an affordable and healthful manner.Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Social Science and Humanities Research Counci

Eviction Prevention: Toolkit of Promising Practices

38 p. : ill.This ‘toolkit and resource guide’ is intended to be a short, accessible guide for organizations wanting to help their tenants build long-term, stable tenancies. The toolkit provides an scan of tools used by organizations undertaking eviction prevention work — also known as housing retention or housing stabilization. This toolkit is based on the larger work, Holding On! Supporting Successful Tenancies for the Hard to House, which reviews twenty-seven organizations in nine Canadian cities involved with housing the homeless or those at heightened risk of homelessness. The report reviews homelessness in Canada and intervention models, provides case studies of five programs, and reviews programming and best practices in eviction prevention. The twenty-seven organizations varied in size and model of service delivery, from small housing organizations to the largest provincial housing authorities, and from those offering small-scale in-house supports to those providing intensive Housing First interventions.Government of Canada: Homelessness Partnering Strateg