Lunch & Learn: What IS the Right to Housing?
Date: July 7, 2020
Time: 11:30 am - 1:00 pm (MST)
Location: Zoom
Register Here
The Affordable Housing Solutions Lab (AHSL) is pleased to invite you to our next event in our Right to Housing Series on Zoom* on Wednesday July 7 from 11:30 am – 1:00 pm in partnership with the National Right to Housing Network (NRHN) and the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (CERA).
* This event will be recorded and posted on the AHSL's YouTube Channel
Our invited speakers Michèle Biss (NRHN) and Alyssa Brierley (CERA) will discuss:
- What the right to housing means
- Where the right to housing came from
- How the right to housing can be claimed by marginalized and under-resourced groups in Canada
- What Canada’s new housing rights-claiming mechanisms look like
- How these new mechanisms can be used by individuals and organizations to achieve systemic change in the housing sector, so that everyone has access to a safe and adequate home
Michèle Biss, Project Manager (NRHC)
Michèle is the Project Manager of the National Right to Housing Network, an Allied Network housed at the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH). As an expert in economic and social rights, she has presented at several United Nations treaty body reviews and at Canadian parliamentary committees on issues related to poverty. Prior to her work at the CAEH, Michèle was the Policy Director and Human Rights Lawyer at Canada Without Poverty. She has extensive professional experience working for marginalized groups, particularly women, persons with disabilities, newcomers, and Indigenous persons through casework, research, and community legal education. She is a human rights lawyer and was called to the Ontario bar in 2014.
Alyssa Brierley, Executive Director and General Counsel (CERA)
Alyssa is a lawyer and public policy professional with over a decade of experience in public policy, legal service, research and operations management. Prior to joining CERA, Alyssa served as the health, social, justice and labour policy advisor to the President of the Treasury Board of Ontario and as the Director of Policy to the Minister of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure. Alyssa has also worked as a legal research and communications advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, as a lawyer and policy analyst at the Ontario College of Teachers, and completed her articles at Torys LLP. Alyssa holds a BA from the University of Waterloo, an MA in Political Science from York University, a Juris Doctor from Osgoode Hall Law School and is completing a Ph.D. in Political Science at York University, focused on the right to food in India.
