Aboriginal urban homelessness among issues 15 Canada Research Chairholders set to tackle

Ten U of T professors have been awarded new Canada Research Chairs and five more have had their chairs renewed as announced by the Government of Canada on Nov. 14.

In total, the government is providing $108.9 million across the country through the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program to support 135 newly-awarded and renewed chairs.

Professor Suzanne Stewart of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) is one of the new U of T chairholders. As the Canada Research Chair in Aboriginal Homelessness and Life Transitions, she will analyze the disproportionate number of Aboriginal homeless people living in cities and design practical solutions that can be used by individuals, organizations and policy-makers.

A member of the Yellowknife Dene First Nation, Stewart is also a registered psychologist and a professor in OISE’s Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development. She has firsthand experience with her subject matter. Her mother and many other family members intergenerationally were forcibly removed from the family and sent to Canada’s infamous residential schools.

“From the late 1800s to the early 1990s, almost 200,000 Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their homes by the age of four or five and sent to government-owned and church-run boarding schools,” she says. “They were not allowed to speak their language and they were kept away from their families. And there were high levels of physical, sexual and emotional abuse.” (Read more about Stewart’s research by visiting Edge magazine)

When people are living with trauma of this kind, Stewart says, they may experience higher levels of mental health problems, including substance abuse and addictions. Combine that with high numbers of Aboriginal people moving to cities for economic and educational opportunities that are not available on reserves and in rural areas, and the homeless problem results.

Stewart says she believes that the experience of Canadian Aboriginal people is so different from other Canadians that a Western approach to developing concrete solutions to homelessness just cannot work. She has enlisted community partners in her research, in Toronto and abroad. Aboriginal students will be on her team, for example, and she will also work with partners in Hawaii, where native Hawaiians face similar challenges due to past colonialism.

“Congratulations to our new and renewed chairholders,” said Professor Paul Young, U of T’s vice-president (research and innovation). These researchers are conducting ground-breaking research that is solving real problems and helping us understand ourselves and our world. The CRC designation is one they can justifiably be proud of.”

“I am thrilled to see Suzanne’s important work with Aboriginal youth gain the recognition of a CRC, and further funding from infrastructure grant from the Canada Foundation For Innovation,” said Karen Mundy, associate dean of research, international and innovation at OISE.

The new chairholders are:

Richard Bazinet, Department of Nutritional Sciences, CRC in Brain Lipid Metabolism
Amy Caudy, Banting & Best Department of Medical Research, CRC in Metabolics for Functional Enzyme Discovery
Hai-Ying Cheng, Department of Biology, U of T Mississauga, CRC in Molecular Genetics of Biological Clocks
Patrick Gunning, Department of Chemical & Physical Sciences, U of T Mississauga, CRC in Medicinal Chemistry
Elizabeth Johnson, Department of Psychology, U of T Mississauga, CRC in Spoken Language Acquisition
Jeffery Lee, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, CRC in Structural Virology
Thierry Mallevaey, Department of Immunology, CRC in NKT Cell Immunobiology
Rosemary Martino, Department of Speech-Language Pathology, CRC in Swallowing Disorders
Suzanne Stewart, Department of Applied Psychology & Human Development at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, CRC in Aboriginal Homelessness and Life Transitions
Piero Triverio, The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, CRC in Modeling of Electrical Interconnects

In addition, five researchers had their chairs renewed:

Charlie Boone, Banting & Best Department of Medical Research, CRC in Proteomics, Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics
Cindy-Lee Dennis, Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, CRC in Perinatal Community Health
Michael Lambek, Department of Anthropology, U of T Scarborough, CRC in the Anthropology of Ethical Life
Christopher McCulloch, Faculty of Dentistry, CRC in Matrix Dynamics
Mohan Matthen, Department of Philosophy, U of T Mississauga, CRC in Philosophy of Perception