I describe this chapter as a work of blood, memory and critique. Using the aforementioned tragedy as a touch point, I explored social housing’s top-down design scheme, place-based stigma, lack of gender analysis and the urgent need to centralize human dignity going forward. So in many ways when I was approached to co-edit and contribute to Subdivided, an anthology exploring inclusive city-building, my chapter on Designing Dignified Social Housing was already in progress.
As an adult, working in placemaking and stakeholder engagement across academic and professional contexts, I’ve refused to accept the city’s growing disparity and increase in housing vulnerability. It has also been a place fraught with numerous challenges including an under-aged sex trade that I witnessed, which claimed the life of a friend’s older sister. For me, social housing has been a place of significance – a place where I spent my formative years developing unconditional friendships, resilience and city-building values. For her, our time in the community was a shameful blip in a story of immigration and ascension to the “respectable” middle-class. She was eager to leave behind all memories of social housing. I’d recently completed a photo essay documenting the social housing community where I lived before my mother completed her post-secondary education and moved us out. Around this time last year, I was invited to co-edit an anthology exploring inclusive city-building.
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