Climate Change and Homelessness (Forum 2022)

Speaker: Tristia Bauman with the National Homelessness Law Center, Evlonodo Cooper from Media Matters, Denise Ghartey with Community Justice Project, Sean Kidd with the University of Toronto Department of Psychiatry, Noah Patton from the National Low Income Housing Coalition

Session Description: As the climate changes rapidly, people experiencing housing insecurity, homelessness, and particularly unsheltered homelessness are often the most vulnerable to natural disasters and related displacement or forced migration. While there is a vast network of federal disaster relief funds and programs, these programs are not created or administered with unhoused communities in mind.

Additionally, as communities get creative about implementing climate change-fighting infrastructure, effects like gentrification and displacement are seldom contemplated. This session will explore ways in which the federal disaster relief system can be reformed to account for and accommodate people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity, as well as ways that city planners and climate change activists can adapt their communities’ infrastructure to withstand climate change in ways that do not force out unhoused and low-income residents.