By Stephanie Mancini
Published June 2023
At The Working Centre, we are forty some years into this work, feeling deeply rocked by the increasingly stark reality of people who are being left out of housing, people facing the deep dislocation of poverty, a lack of housing, a poison and highly addictive drug supply. Our hearts are broken apart and broken open over and over again as we stand witness to people facing increasing hardship.
We are strengthened and nourished by the witness of those who have come before us – the Catholic Worker movement that stood strongly in the face of the buffeting political issues of the time – holding the importance of personalist examples and radical hospitality.
We are settling out of the rush of opportunity created by Covid funding where we responded thoughtfully to those who were left out, where we created new housing and shelter opportunities – building opportunity out of the chaos. It was a bit of a playground of innovation, but we can hear the funding drying up, the call for reduced budgets, the lack of funds to do meaningful work. Such a jolting reality as we recognize that the need is not going away. Every new effort takes resources, and finding those resources becomes harder once again.
The Mayors’ Dinner was a testament to the importance of finding creative ways to make affordable housing happen, using witness, radical hospitality, and innovative partnerships to create more affordable and supportive housing.
It is also important to reflect on the forming of Canada, of shaping our continuous democracy over time. John Ralston Saul gives us a moral and political compass to think about how we organize our decisions about collective need. Saul acknowledges we missed the priority of indigenous peoples and the land we share. How do we hold on to the principles Saul is talking about, and not miss the reality of people who have been left out of our community priorities?
We continue to reflect, to act in to the realities of our time, to learn from those who have come before us, to ask ourselves hard questions about our current realities. All while acting-in continuously to the good work needed in our times.
