Society – TWC Interactive

How an Inhospitable Labour Market Increases Homelessness

Joe Mancini September 1, 2025

Canadians are asking why the number of unhoused people has grown steadily over the past ten years. In Waterloo Region alone, there are over 2371 people are unhoused.

It is widely agreed that the homelessness crisis is the result of poor housing planning. The supply of housing has not kept up with demand, causing rising housing prices. At the same time, housing became coveted as a commodity, which has added to inflated housing costs.

The Growing Tragedy of Fentanyl and the Potential for Recovery

Sam Quinones September 1, 2025

The following text is reprinted from the Dreamland Newsletter report on the Kensington area in Philadelphia, PA

I’ve been several times to the district in Philadelphia where dealers awaken their customers each morning with cries of free “Samples!” Kensington was once all about heroin. But fentanyl has taken over and addicts are frozen in bizarre positions — “Kensington yoga,” as it’s called.

Fr. Greg Boyle Visits The Working Centre

The Working Centre June 1, 2025

On May 15th, 2025, we had the pleasure of meeting with Fr. Greg Boyle who was in town to present a Lecture in Catholic Experience at St. Jerome’s University. The following is an excerpt from Fr. Greg’s talk

Harden Not Our Hearts

Stephanie Mancini December 1, 2024

Driving through rural Ontario, it is not unusual to see signs with Christian messages surrounded by colourful leaves at this time of year. I was struck recently by one sign that read, “Harden not your heart”. As we were driving by this sign, we were also receiving updates from our shelter team that there were four overdoses happening at the same time.

Searching for Wholeness

Joe Mancini September 20, 2024

All around us, we have seen higher levels of anger expressed in political and social environments. You see this in relation to politics, you see it in the eyes of enraged drivers, and we have seen it in our community as people reconcile the realities of more and more people experiencing homelessness and drug addiction, especially around shelters and spaces that support people most at risk.

The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together As Things Fall Apart

Joe Mancini March 1, 2024

The main message of Astra Taylor’s The Age of Insecurity is How Can We Come Together. When CBC IDEAS asked Astra Taylor to give the Massey Lecture, they were inviting a Canadian who has been acting on the insecurity that has provoked the Occupy generation. Since her Occupy days, Taylor’s projects include the Debt Collective, a US based operation which supports those who have taken on overwhelming debt to pay for education, rent or bail. Taylor is very familiar with the causes of the insecurity she writes about.

What Addiction Does to People’s Brains and How to Help Them

William Andereck March 1, 2024

Published in March 2024 Good Work News; Originally published in San Francisco Chronicle, July 2023
Sadly, they are called “frequent flyers” — severely ill patients with serious medical conditions who routinely cycle in and out of hospital emergency departments. On any given day, their affliction could be an overwhelming infection, festering wounds or even a coma. Sometimes they require a ventilator and ICU care.

The Drug Epidemic and the Social Housing Challenge

Joe Mancini December 1, 2023

All shelter spaces are full. The 230 shelter beds that the Working Centre has established in the last three years have helped to double the Region’s shelter capacity, but there are still 200 people camping and without access to shelter. There is little movement of people in our shelters as housing costs are beyond any social assistance cheque. Underneath the despair of reduced housing options is a burgeoning drug problem.

International Climate Justice

Isaiah Ritzmann September 30, 2023

Canada’s fair share of climate action is greater than what our governments are promising, let alone doing. In fact Canada’s fair share of climate action is greater than our society’s capacity. The amount we would need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to be fair to other nations is greater than our ability to do so, technically and physically. The gap between what we should do and what we can do becomes what we owe – our climate debt – to those countries whose fair shares we are, in effect, borrowing.

175 Years of Canadian Democracy

John Ralston Saul June 1, 2023

When a group of Canadian citizens brought the national capital to a halt for three weeks in January and February, 2022, the atmosphere on all sides was one of confusion. Nothing like this had ever happened in Canada’s capital – at least, not since anti-democratic forces besieged Parliament, which was then based in Montreal, and burned it to the ground. That was a little while ago: April 25, 1849.

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