What does it mean to live in the city without a place you can call your own? What role can architects have in addressing homelessness? And how can cities become a better home for all? The documentary film What It Takes to Make a Home follows a conversation between architects Michael Maltzan (Los Angeles) and Alexander Hagner (Vienna), who have been grappling with these questions over many years and through various projects.

What It Takes to Make a Home is screening online on Facebook and YouTube, on 26 November, at 2pm, and is followed by a live panel with Charlotte Biddle-Bocan, Edith Cyr, and Maya Cousineau Mollen, and moderated by Carolyne Grimard, professor and researcher in social work at Université de Montréal, where they will discuss issues of urban hostility, homelessness policies, and recent events in Montreal.

Charlotte Biddle-Bocan has a background in political science and law, and works with Passages, a Montreal organization that offers emergency shelter and housing support for young women experiencing homelessness since 1989.

Edith Cyr has worked in community housing for over 40 years. She is general director of Bâtir son quartier, a key actor in community real estate in Quebec and the main community resource in housing development in Canada. She also is the Executive Director for Gérer son quartier, a non-profit organization founded in 1996.

Maya Cousineau Mollen is a poet from the Innu Montagnais nation. Since 2017, Maya has been involved with Projets Autochtones du Québec, which offers housing and services adapted to the cultures of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis individuals living in precarious situations or in a state of transition. She is also the Community Development Advisor First Nations and Inuit for EVOQ Architecture.

Carolyne Grimard is a professor and researcher at Université de Montréal in the field of social work, and a partner of Architecture sans frontière Québec’s program, titled recherche-action-diffusion, on architecture and homelessness. Her research is based on extreme poverty, as well as the retention process of outreach structures (shelters, welfare programs, reintegration programs, etc.) available to people facing homelessness. On a larger scale, she is interested in the tensions that arise through living together between these individuals, institutions, social politics, community organizations and surrounding neighbourhoods.

The event is free and no registration is needed. It will be streamed on the CCA YouTube channel and on Facebook.

2019 | 29 min
Canada
Digital film
First film of a three-part documentary series

Conceived by Giovanna Borasi
Directed by Daniel Schwartz

This film received the generous support of a private donor.

Film produced by the CCA, event presented in collaboration with Architecture sans frontières Québec, and in partnership with the Architecture & Design Film Festival, and Arts of the Working Class.