Open Collections

Sagert, Erika

Non-profit supportive housing plays a critical role in the housing spectrum by providing resources and shelter for those who may struggle to thrive in the private market either long term or temporarily. To ensure the viability of the supportive housing model over the life of a building, housing providers need to contend with the complexity of current and future residents and develop housing that supports diversity and ever-changing needs. This report delivers insights into the development of women-centered supportive housing through an investigation into the livability of one of Atira Women’s Resource Society’s buildings in Downtown Vancouver called Sorella. Specifically, this report focuses on the ability of Sorella’s common spaces to support the women and children who live there. Drawing on one of Atira’s primary values, inclusive feminism, this report applies intersectional feminist analysis to an examination of the building’s design. Intersectionality is the recognition that race, class, and gender produce complex sites of marginalization that lead individuals to experience the world around them in distinct ways, something which can and should be applied to the world of design. Ultimately, this report offers recommendations for designing women-centered supportive housing that can be taken into consideration by other housing providers looking to apply intersectionality to their supportive housing project. By combining a literature review with lessons learned from the lived experiences of women in supportive housing

Graduating Project

eng

2018-01-03

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/64243

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/