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#112 (En anglais) | Left Out in the Cold – Episode 3: Housing Available But Not Accessible

– Nov 2025

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#112 (En anglais) | Left Out in the Cold – Episode 3: Housing Available But Not Accessible
Broadcast Date: November 22, 2025

EPISODE SUMMARY | SERIES OVERVIEW | BIOGRAPHIES | USEFUL LINKS

EPISODE SUMMARY

Guaranteeing the right to housing on its own misses a key overlapping concern: whether the housing is actually accessible. Despite the federal government’s goal of achieving a barrier-free Canada by 2040, many people continue to face barriers in securing housing that meets their accessibility needs and are twice as likely to live in core housing need.

In the third episode of this series, host Sarah Rowe is joined by Marie-Josée Houle, Canada’s first Federal Housing Advocate, and Stephanie Chipeur, who holds the Azrieli Accelerator Professorship in Law & Disability Policy at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law and the School of Public Policy. Together, they discuss the right to adequate housing that is accessible, adaptable, and visitable for people with disabilities, seniors, and other equity-deserving groups.

Guests

Stephanie Chipeur, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law & School of Public Policy, University of Calgary
Marie-Josée Houle, Federal Housing Advocate

Host

Sarah Rowe, Legal Counsel, Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice (CIAJ)

SERIES OVERVIEW

Left Out in the Cold
A podcast series from CIAJ’s In All Fairness channel

Over the past several years, housing has emerged as a hot-button issue in Canadian discourse. How is affordability defined? Why are Indigenous peoples more likely to lack adequate housing? Is housing policy adequately addressing accessibility needs?

Left Out in the Cold aims to answer these and other questions over the course of this series. Hosted by Sarah Rowe, Legal Counsel at CIAJ, this series features conversations with legal and policy experts and community advocates on issues facing the Canadian housing sector. Each episode balances conversations about high-level legislative frameworks with the on-the-ground realities of everyday Canadians. Join us in these conversations as we try to root out the causes of housing insecurity in this country.

Episode 1 | Left Out in the Cold – Barriers to Adequate Housing and How Indigenous Housing Organizations are Filling the Gaps (Guests: Justin Marchand & Margaret Pfoh)
Episode 2 | Left Out in the Cold – Advancing the Right to Housing while Financialization Pulls the Strings (Guests: Michèle Biss & Ricardo Tranjan)
Episode 3 | Left Out in the Cold – Housing Available But Not Accessible (Guests: Stephanie Chipeur & Marie-Josée Houle)
Episode 4 | Left Out in the Cold – Putting « Housing First » in Finland (Guest: Juha Kahila)

BIOGRAPHIES

Stephanie Chipeur

Stephanie Chipeur holds the Azrieli Accelerator Professorship in Law & Disability Policy at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law and the School of Public Policy.  Stephanie has a JD from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and is a member of the Law Society of Ontario. She completed her LLM and DCL at McGill University’s Faculty of Law. As a wheelchair user, Stephanie brings lived experience to her research on disability law and policy.

Marie-Josée Houle

Marie-Josée Houle is Canada’s first Federal Housing Advocate. She was first appointed to the role in February 2022, and was re-appointed for a three-year term on February 21, 2025. She brings with her deep knowledge, expertise, and passion from a long-standing career in the affordable housing and homelessness sector.

As Federal Housing Advocate, Ms. Houle is using her mandate to spotlight key issues of national concern and provide evidence-based recommendations to address the housing and homelessness crisis. Ms. Houle is dedicated to working directly with rights holders, civil society, and decision-makers to arrive at human rights-based solutions. Her work creates space for marginalized voices to be heard and amplified.

In particular, Ms. Houle remains one of the country’s top voices advocating for the human rights of encampment residents. Her work has exposed the serious underfunding and lack of safe housing infrastructure for Métis communities in Saskatchewan and Inuit in Nunavut and Nunatsiavut. She has also successfully led advocacy campaigns with decision-makers to advance her recommendations and drive change on these systemic issues. She has referred three major systemic housing issues to the National Housing Council for formal review.

Ms. Houle’s previous experience includes frontline and educational work in housing co-ops, project management for non-market housing development, housing-related research projects, and advocating for tenant rights at all levels of government. Her previous titles include Executive Director for Action-Logement, Executive Director for Unity Housing Ottawa, and co-chair of the City of Ottawa’s Housing Loss Prevention Committee. She has held advisory roles with several committees and built partnerships among diverse stakeholders.

Born in Val D’Or, Québec, and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Ms. Houle holds a Master of Arts in Sociology and Social Anthropology from Dalhousie and a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Sciences from the University of Alberta. She is fluently bilingual in English and French, and is a devoted and celebrated musician.

Sarah Rowe

Sarah is a graduate of University of Ottawa’s Common Law program, having previously obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. She articled at Legal Aid NL and is a member of the Law Society of Newfoundland and Labrador. Throughout law school, Sarah worked as a student intern at CIAJ. In her new position as legal counsel, Sarah is responsible for assisting with the development and management of CIAJ projects, including the research and analysis of legislation, court decisions, and government policies. In this role, she also engages with law students and law faculties to ensure relevancy and legal accuracy of CIAJ’s educational programs. In her free time, Sarah enjoys volunteering, playing guitar, and supporting local theatre.

USEFUL LINKS

Opinion: An accessible Canada for all, and for all time – By Marie-Josée Houle and Stephanie Chipeur
Office of the Federal Housing Advocate/Bureau du défenseur fédéral du logement: LinkedIn and Bluesky pages

In All Fairness is a Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice podcast channel welcoming representatives from the legal community and exploring how we can all contribute to improving the administration of justice in Canada. Legal professionals will benefit from informed discussions on key issues, essential knowledge and insights to strengthen their practice.

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