ABOUT US
Our work
The Housing Justice Project meets to share our lived expertise and to learn together how to utilize human rights, community organizing, and community-based research including storytelling practices to advance the right to housing in our community, Greater Victoria.
what are we fighting for?
We are fighting for HOMES FOR ALL and for housing to be realized as a human right.
Expert Advisors
Who we are/our expertise
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We have hundreds of years lived experiences with homelessness.
We have survived and escaped all forms of homelessness. We are Indigenous, we are racialized, we are settlers, we are women, we are men, we are non-binary, we live with disabilities, we are seniors and we are young.
Many of us are not far enough away from our experience of homelessness to have survived it. Many of us live in fear of becoming homeless again because of the lack of safe affordable homes in our community. We hold space for those currently experiencing homeless and for those who did not survive homelessness.
Project Team Members
Rama Maria de la Rosa
Research, consultation and strategy
Hacha! My name is Rama and I am originally from Port Alberni, BC; Nuu-chah-nulthTerritory. Specifically the home of theTseshaht and Hupacasath First Nations. I was mostly raised in Tampa, Florida and returned to live in BC in 2010. I am the daughter of a Canadian fisherman and a Mayan/Guatemalan immigrant mother. I am multiracial but I identify most strongly with the Indigenous (K’iche’, Tzutujil and Zapotec) and Latinx (Spanish, African) cultures of my mother, who raised me. I am the proud mother of a Coast Salish daughter and currently live on the Coast Salish Territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən and SENĆOŦEN speaking peoples. I live with several disabilities; mobility, cognitive, autoimmune and mental health. I am queer and gender queer. I have 15+ years of lived experience of homelessness. I first experienced homelessness at age 15 as a queer youth escaping violence. I was mostly a “woodland” homeless person who survived through my music, hitchhiking and busking from town to town, singing for my supper and camping on the outskirts of cities and towns across North America. All of these experiences and identities are part of what has shaped the perspective with which I see, and work through today. I feel honoured and grateful to be able to use my intersectional lens and experience of homelessness to fight for the human right to housing and homes for all.
Shay Dasta
Lived expert
Tansi/ hello, My name is Shay (Shalani Dasta). I am a biracial Indigenous woman, half East-Indian and half Cree (Tallcree/Beaver First Nations). I’m a single mother of two, living on Victoria’s Westshore. I grew up in Vancouver and lived there until age 25. I’ve now been a Vancouver island resident for over a decade.
My journey has been largely shaped by intergenerational trauma, childhood trauma, surviving domestic violence, addiction, living with chronic health conditions and experiencing different types of homelessness firsthand.
Housing is a fundamental human right for all. I care deeply for and seek to help our unhoused relatives here in Victoria, many of whom are also indigenous. Safe and stable housing is not a luxury; it is the foundation for healing, dignity and thriving.
Thank you/Hiy Hiy.
Bruce Livingstone
Peer Organizer
Bruce Livingstone has been a housing rights advocate networking on the Coast Salish territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples for more than a decade. He first became homeless at the age of 15 and has much lived experience of Canada’s broken social systems. He has worked with human rights legal advocates such as Pivot Legal, The SHIFT and the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate to further the human right to housing.
Bernie Pauly
Co-Founding Lead
Dr. Bernie Pauly is a professor in the UVic School of Nursing, a scientist with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research, a member of the Renewal of Public Health Services Research Team, and a priority lead for the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness.
Nicole Chaland
Co-Founding Lead
Nicole Chaland is a housing and homelessness researcher and advocate. Nicole brings extensive community economic development and popular education experience to this work.
Kathy Horne and Doug LaFortune
Elders in Residence
Doug and Kathy call Tsawout First Nation home and are part of the səlxʷéyn sqʷél SELWÁN SḰÁL (Elders Voices) program at UVIC. They provide an important connection to Indigenous culture and leadership which is highly valued by our cohort.
“Honour who you are and where you came from. You have the power to achieve what you want.” Kathy Horne
“It’s important that we’re there for the students and that we’re showing them that it’s possible to overcome difficulties.” Doug LaFortune
collaborators
supporters
Funding for this project was provided by the Vancouver Foundation.
Funding for many of our projects has been provided by BCGEU.
My Great Neighbourhood Grants funding has been provided by the City of Victoria.