She They Us

About She They Us

Welcome to She They Us, a podcast about making room in housing for women and gender-diverse people brought to you by the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing. Join host Andrea Reimer to hear about why Canada’s housing crisis is hitting households led by women and gender-diverse people harder and what you can do about it.

Publisher

Pan-Canadian Voice for Women's Housing

Category

health & fitness · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

1 Aug 2023

Latest episode

16 Dec 2025

Latest episodes

23 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   16 Dec 2025

   Housing Justice in Motion

   Season 3 Episode 6 In the season finale of She.They.Us., host Andrea Reimer closes this chapter with Jayne Malenfant, a non-binary researcher and advocate based at McGill University whose story brings together everything we’ve heard this season about housing precarity, belonging, and survival. From growing up in Northern Ontario to navigating hidden homelessness, couch surfing, and unsafe housing, Jayne shares what it means to live inside systems that were never designed for women and gender-diverse people to thrive. Jayne’s lived experience and research reveal how housing insecurity often hides in plain sight in overcrowded apartments, unstable arrangements, and the quiet fear of losing shelter. They explore how gender-diverse people, especially youth, face unique pathways into homelessness through family rejection, discrimination in the rental market, and the lack of safe, affirming housing options. At the heart of their work is a powerful truth - home is not just a place, but a feeling of safety, dignity, and being seen. This episode moves beyond the failures of the system to highlight what communities have built instead: mutual aid, chosen families, peer-led housing, and informal care networks that Jayne calls “housing justice in motion.” Together, Andrea and Jayne unpack concepts like agency, choice, and “radical imagining” - the practice of dreaming beyond what feels politically possible to envision housing systems that are truly just, human, and inclusive. As the season closes, Andrea and writer-producer Linda Rourke reflect on the stories shared across the series — stories not of victimhood, but of resistance, creativity, and leadership. This final conversation is an invitation to listeners to see housing not just as policy, but as relationship, responsibility, and collective care and to believe that a system built for all of us is not only necessary, but possible. The last word goes to the women and gender-diverse people we’ve heard from this season. We pull together their hopes and dreams for housing, belonging and justice, and the impact they hope their stories will have on listeners and policy makers. Guests Jayne Malenfant is a non-binary researcher at McGill University studying the past, present and future of queer and trans youth homelessness through lived experience and radical imagination. Plus voices from across Season 3: Marie McGregor Pitawanakwat (Episode 1) Pamela Spurvey (Episode 2) Monique Courcelles (Episode 2) Carolyn Whitzman (Episode 3) Jennifer Smith (Episode 3) Jill Kelly (Episode 3) Stephanie Allen (Episode 4) Elvenia Grace Sandeford (Episode 4) Dr. Fadhilah Balugu (Episode 4) Dara Dillon (Episode 4) Catherine Clement (Episode 5) Ceta Ramkhalawansingh (Episode 5) Adeem Younis (Episode 5) Music by: Reid Jamieson & CVM, from The Pigeon & The Dove, an original folk opera about housing insecurity and the many roads you can take to end up on the street.  https://linktr.ee/reidjamieson (https://linktr.ee/reidjamieson) Organizations Mentioned in the Podcast Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing — https://pcvwh.ca (https://pcvwh.ca) MyCasa MTL - https://mycasamtl.com/mycasa/ (https://mycasamtl.com/mycasa/) Ways to Take Action Learn more about the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing: pcvwh.ca Follow and tag us at @voice4housing Share this episode Learn about the experiences of gender-diverse folks and housing in Canada. This is a great place to start: https://caeh.ca/pride-housing-for-gender-diverse/ (https://caeh.ca/pride-housing-for-gender-diverse/) Interested in sharing your own story or building your advocacy skills? Explore PCVWH’s training programs for women and gender-diverse people: pcvwh.ca/training Whether you have lived experience of the housing crisis or stand alongside those who do, your voice matters — join a local housing advocacy group, speak at a council meeting, or connect with your MP or MLA to push for change. We have tools and resources that can help Credits Produced in collaboration with Everything Podcasts. Host: Andrea Reimer Producer & Writer: Linda Rourke Sound Engineer: Jordan Wong Senior Account Director: Lisa Bishop Executive Producer: Jennifer Smith Project Partner: Ange Valentini, Strategic Impact Collective Project Coordinator: Monica Deng, Pan-Canadian Voice for Housing Social Media Jayne - @mcgilleducation

2. 

   9 Dec 2025

   I Refuse to Disappear: Racialized Women Fighting for Space in Canada

   Season 3 Episode 5 I Refuse to Disappear: Racialized Women Fighting for Space in Canada In this episode of She They Us, host Andrea Reimer continues the series exploring how women and gender-diverse people create belonging in housing systems that were never designed for them. Building on the previous episode’s conversation with four Black women, Andrea traces the deeper roots of Canada’s housing inequities, roots grounded not in a neutral “free market,” but in policy choices about who was permitted to belong. In this episode, she turns to the histories of Chinese immigration in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and then those racialized women who came from the 1960s onward after decades of exclusion in Canadian immigration policy. Their experiences  as Chinese, Indo-Caribbean and Palestinian women reveal how exclusion, displacement, and segregation shaped not only neighbourhoods, but generations of families seeking safety, stability, and home. Andrea speaks first with Catherine Clement, a community historian whose work on Chinese-Canadian memory awakened her own connection to a heritage she had long pushed aside. Catherine walks us through the stark realities of the Chinese Exclusion Act and head tax era: a bachelor society of nearly 50,000 men and just over 1,300 women, forced family separation, and housing conditions so grim that many preferred the street to the overcrowded rooms where up to four men shared a single bed. She reveals how the effects of those laws continued long after repeal, through lingering prejudice, restricted mobility, and the silence families carried as they tried to build new lives in a country that had kept them at the margins. The episode then shifts to Toronto, where Ceta Ramkhalawansingh, an immigrant from Trinidad, describes how she became an “accidental housing activist” in 1971 when her student co-op discovered that their entire block was slated for redevelopment. What followed was a years-long organizing effort; students, newcomers, draft dodgers, and working-class tenants pushing back against absentee landlords, neglected repairs, and powerful landowners. Ceta’s story is ultimately one of community power: how ordinary neighbours challenged a system designed to erase them, and in doing so, transformed the landscape of housing rights in Canada’s largest city. Andrea also sits down with Adeem Younis, an architect from Gaza whose journey to Canada began as a temporary fellowship abroad and turned into an unexpected flight from war with nothing but the clothes she was wearing. Landing in a country where she knew no one, Adeem ran a gauntlet of homelessness, unsafe rentals, and months of bed-bug-infested rooms before finally securing a small apartment she has since transformed into a vibrant, colourful home filled with plants, memories of Palestine, and the scent of food that reminds her she is still alive, still rooted. Today, she works with newcomers, refugees, and asylum seekers—many of them women fleeing violence, war, and impossible choices—offering the support she once longed for. Adeem’s story brings the episode into the present, revealing how displacement, dignity, and the search for safety continue to shape the lives of women arriving in Canada right now, and how courage becomes its own form of belonging. Guests Catherine Clement is a community historian, author, and curator whose work excavates Chinese-Canadian memory and history. A former Vancouver Foundation executive and communications leader, she’s now bringing the untold stories of Chinese-Canadians to life through exhibitions and books. Ceta Ramkhalawansingh is an Indo-Caribbean city builder, feminist, and housing activist. She spent 30 years at Toronto City Hall introducing groundbreaking equity and human rights policies, served as Toronto City Councillor, and continues organizing for social housing and community power in her neighborhood Adeem Younis is a Palestinian architect, community developer, and settlement worker. Originally from Gaza, she now supports refugees and asylum seekers—particularly women fleeing violence—as they navigate housing, integration, and rebuilding lives with dignity in British Columbia. Music by: Reid Jamieson & CVM, from The Pigeon & The Dove, an original folk opera about housing insecurity and the many roads you can take to end up on the street.  https://linktr.ee/reidjamieson (https://linktr.ee/reidjamieson) Organizations Mentioned in the Podcast Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing — https://pcvwh.ca (https://pcvwh.ca) The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act by Catherine Clement - https://literasian.com/catherine-clement/ (https://literasian.com/catherine-clement/) Women and Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto (a short history) - https://magazine.utoronto.ca/research-ideas/culture-society/revolutionary-road-women-rights-social-activism-margaret-webb/ (https://magazine.utoronto.ca/research-ideas/culture-society/revolutionary-road-women-rights-social-activism-margaret-webb/) DIVERSEcity Community Resources Society - https://www.dcrs.ca/ (https://www.dcrs.ca/) Ways to Take Action Learn more about the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing: pcvwh.ca Follow and tag us at @voice4housing Share this episode Learn about these histories. There are so many places to learn more but some good places to start: check out Catherine’s new book, read about Ceta’s incredible career, and visit DIVERSEcity Community Resources Society to learn more about how new generations of immigrant and refugee women are making space in Canada. Interested in sharing your own story or building your advocacy skills? Explore PCVWH’s training programs for women and gender-diverse people: pcvwh.ca/training Whether you have lived experience of the housing crisis or stand alongside those who do, your voice matters — join a local housing advocacy group, speak at a council meeting, or connect with your MP or MLA to push for change. We have tools and resources that can help Credits Produced in collaboration with Everything Podcasts. Host: Andrea Reimer Producer & Writer: Linda Rourke Sound Engineer: Jordan Wong Senior Account Director: Lisa Bishop Executive Producer: Jennifer Smith Project Partner: Ange Valentini, Strategic Impact Collective Project Coordinator: Monica Deng, Pan-Canadian Voice for Housing Social Media https://www.linkedin.com/in/adeemahmadyounis/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/adeemahmadyounis/) #podcast #housing

3. 

   2 Dec 2025

   Home as Resistance – Black Women and the Cost of Belonging in Canada

   Season 3 Episode 4 Andrea begins the episode with housing advocate and urban scholar Stephanie Allen, a Black woman born and raised in Canada, who helps unearth the often-obscured history behind housing systems in North America. Stephanie traces how urban planning, real estate practices, and colonial policy have long excluded and displaced Black communities, even when those policies were presented as neutral. She shares her own path from real estate development into social-justice-focused urban research, illuminating the deep structural roots of today’s inequities. Together, she and Andrea explore why Black women in particular face compounded barriers at the intersections of racism, sexism, and economic inequality. Stephanie reflects on the role of home as a place of safety, resistance, and cultural identity within Black communities—and why meaningful change now requires political courage, from those in government to everyday citizens, to treat housing as a human right for all rather than a commodity. Next, we meet Elvenia Grace Sandiford, who immigrated from Jamaica in the late ’80s and has spent decades working on the front lines in crisis centres and transition houses. Through supporting women escaping violence, she has seen firsthand how deeply housing shapes every aspect of a woman’s life, from safety and health to family stability. She also highlights how Black women are routinely left out of the data and policy decisions that shape housing systems. Elvenia shares deeply personal experiences of discrimination she has faced in her work, from job opportunities denied because she was a Black woman to hostility while supporting survivors. Through her organization, Harambee Alliance, she works to make visible the housing precarity that often remains hidden, particularly for Black women who move quietly from couch to couch, uncounted and unsupported. Even today, with a new degree in hand and a lifetime of experience in her field, she faces Vancouver’s high costs and a labour market that continues to undervalue her. We then hear from Dr. Fadhilah Balugu, who arrived from Nigeria two decades ago only to discover her medical credentials were not recognized in Canada. She describes the painful experience of being reduced to “a Black woman” in professional spaces, and how she rebuilt her purpose through service and community leadership. Today, she leads the African Women’s Alliance of Waterloo Region, supporting newcomers who face racism, isolation, and housing instability. Having relied on rent-geared-to-income housing herself, Fadhilah understands the critical role stable housing plays in a family’s ability to heal, work, and thrive. She sees daily how discrimination, unsafe rental conditions, and rising costs disproportionately affects newcomers and especially those that are  single mothers in her community—women who are asked to carry the weight of a system that was never built with them in mind. Finally, Dara Dillon shares her experience arriving in Canada in 2020 with her young son. Once she and her partner left university housing, they endured eight months of anti-Black, anti-immigrant, and anti-queer discrimination in their housing search. Landlords questioned her employment, agents tried to steer them away from certain neighbourhoods, and the scrutiny was so intense that they often hid their relationship to avoid bias. They eventually found a place only because the landlords chose not to demand credit checks or personal disclosures. Even with two master’s degrees and extensive leadership experience, Dara continues to be offered only low-level jobs, making homeownership and sometimes even stable renting, out of reach. Her story underscores that housing inequity is not just about affordability; it’s about racism, gatekeeping, and who gets access to opportunity. Dara’s hope is simple. Access to good jobs, capital, and ownership so Black families can build security instead of being shut out of it. These voices close the episode with a shared truth: naming discrimination is labour but unfortunately still vital labour to catalyze change. And it’s a reminder of why these stories matter as we continue our series on the history of women and housing. Guests Stephanie Allen is a Vancouver-based housing advocate, researcher, and systems builder whose work advances racial equity in urban planning and supports Black communities in reclaiming land, safety, and belonging. Elvenia Gray-Sandiford is a longtime housing advocate, community worker and recent founder of Harambee Alliance, an organization focused on health and safety for Black women as they age Dr. Fadhilah Balugu is Executive Director of the African Women’s Alliance of Waterloo Region, supporting newcomer women of African descent navigating housing and systemic barriers in the Waterloo region Dara Dillon a Caribbean-born, Canadian-based strategist, speaker, and systems builder who helps organizations and founders move from chaos to clarity with bold strategy and human-centered storytelling. Music by: Reid Jamieson & CVM, from The Pigeon & The Dove, an original folk opera about housing insecurity and the many roads you can take to end up on the street.  https://linktr.ee/reidjamieson (https://linktr.ee/reidjamieson) Organizations Mentioned in the Podcast Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing — https://pcvwh.ca (https://pcvwh.ca) Hogan’s Alley Society (Vancouver) - https://www.hogansalleysociety.org (https://www.hogansalleysociety.org) African Women’s Alliance of Waterloo Region - https://afrowomen.ca (https://afrowomen.ca) Harambee Alliance for Health, Wellness & Aging Society https://www.facebook.com/HarambeeAHWASociety (https://www.facebook.com/HarambeeAHWASociety) Ways to Take Action Learn more about the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing: pcvwh.ca Follow and tag us at @voice4housing Share this episode Find out more about the history of Black women in Canada and how historical experiences shape modern realities Interested in sharing your own story or building your advocacy skills? Explore PCVWH’s training programs for women and gender-diverse people: pcvwh.ca/training Whether you have lived experience of the housing crisis or stand alongside those who do, your voice matters — join a local housing advocacy group, speak at a council meeting, or connect with your MP or MLA to push for change. We have tools and resources that can help Credits Produced in collaboration with Everything Podcasts. Host: Andrea Reimer Producer & Writer: Linda Rourke Sound Engineer: Jordan Wong Senior Account Director: Lisa Bishop Executive Producer: Jennifer Smith Project Partner: Ange Valentini, Strategic Impact Collective Project Coordinator: Monica Deng, Pan-Canadian Voice for Housing Social Media Elvenia https://www.link... (https://www.linkedin.com/in/elvenia-gray-sandiford)

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.