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

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

Winnipeg's Vanishing Rooming Houses: Change in the West Broadway and Spence Neighbourhoods

This In-Brief documents the disappearance of rooming houses from two inner-city neighbourhoods. A community forum held on May 27th, 2014 will bring together more than 80 rooming house tenants, landlords, community members, government representatives, researchers, service agencies and students to discuss the state of rooming houses in Winnipeg.Online resource: 17 pp.; ill., Digital file.Neighbourhood Change Research Partnershi

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

Steinbach Public Transportation Study

report: 89 pp.; ill., digital file.This document constitutes the final report for the Steinbach Transportation Project Steering Committee (STPSC). This report includes a demographic profile of Steinbach; a literature review dealing with many of the relevant issues related to public transportation; several case studies of communities that that range from populations of 6,000 to 28,000; conclusions; and recommendations for pursuing future public transit initiatives for Steinbach. While this report is not a sustainable transportation strategy per se, it is a focused look at one aspect of it: public transportation in the context of small towns and rural areas. More small urban centers in the United States and Canada are now using, developing or considering public transportation solutions, and given its growth and considerable economic activity, Steinbach may be well situated to be included among them

Churchill Sustainability Planning Framework (CSPF)

Report: Xiii, 159 pp.; ill., digital file.e current report is the Churchill Sustainability Planning Framework (CSPF) which sets out the Vision, Values and Priorities for making Churchill a more sustainable community, and provides a “toolkit” for moving these priorities into action. It addresses the environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainability, and makes speciD c recommendations for the updated Community Plans and Urban Design. In order to direct town of Churchill’s resources toward achieving the community’s vision, the current framework is oriented to six interrelated priority areas which may be summarized as: Food Security, Economic Development, Youth Education, Training and Recreation, Waste Management, Housing, and Built Environment.OmniTrax inc

Living in the Red: Exploring Winnipeg's Debt-scape

Report: 12 pp. ill.; digital file.Canadian households are now deeper in debt than at any time since Statistics Canada began collecting debtor data in 1961. Debt, payment delinquency, and bankruptcy are increasingly a part of the lives of the young, the socioeconomically marginalized, and renters. This In-Brief explores the TransUnion dataset available through Winnipeg’s Community Data Consortium, including the spatial patterns of non‑mortgage debt, bankruptcy risk, and the back-end debt ratio in Winnipeg. We find that low income areas have lower levels of non-mortgage and back-end debt but are at a higher risk of bankruptcy. The outer suburbs and high-wealth emerging areas have the highest levels of overall non-mortgage and back-end debt but the lowest bankruptcy risk

Confronting the Illusion: Developing a Method to Identify Food Mirages and Food Deserts in Winnipeg

i, 20 p., mapThis In-Brief develops a new method to identify both food deserts and food mirages to broaden the understanding of barriers individuals face in accessing food. We find that while food deserts exist in Winnipeg, food mirages are even more prevalent - where affordability is a more common barrier to consuming healthy food than distance is. These results emphasize the need for future policy to target the incomes of individuals and food affordability rather than store locations