A documentary set to screen in Yellowknife aims to help bridge different perspectives on homelessness and move toward positive solutions.
Bridging Divides: Voices and Visions about Homelessness in Mid-size Cities features two people with lived experience of homelessness, a service provider, a business owner and a law enforcement member from Ontario.
The documentary was released in 2024 as a collaboration between researchers from York University, Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph.
Erin Dej, an associate professor of criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University, said it came out of a larger project on visible homelessness in mid-sized cities.
“Homelessness is something people are used to seeing in Toronto and Vancouver and Montreal, but many smaller cities are grappling with this issue for the first time, so we’ve been working to understand that,” she explained.
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“As we’ve been doing that work, we really came to see that people are more aligned and more on the same page than we might think they are.
“We wanted to be able to bring people together to have those conversations about: how do we want to move forward as a community, as a country?”
Of the documentary, Dej said she and her colleagues are “really proud of it and we are really hoping that as many communities can use the documentary as a launching point for their own community conversation.”
“Much of this is universal but yet it also requires local context and unique responses that make sense for each community,” she said.
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The film has screened in several Canadian cities.
Dej said discussions the film has sparked were “more positive than we ever could have expected.”
The documentary is set to screen at Yellowknife’s DND gym on Saturday, March 7 at 1pm followed by a panel discussion. The event is free to attend.
The panel will feature:
- Erin Dej;
- Wilfrid Laurier University criminology professor Carrie Sanders;
- Monica Braun, the business owner featured in the documentary;
- James Tolley, director of homelessness at Housing NWT;
- Tony Brushett, executive director of Salvation Army Yellowknife; and
- city councillor Garett Cochrane.
Dej said she hopes people who attend feel validated that “this is a really, really complicated, challenging issue that we’re all trying to do our best to make our way through” and learn that being aligned in values and perspective can lead to meaningful responses.
“I think that they’ll feel heard and they have an opportunity to speak themselves,” she said.
Homelessness has long been an issue in Yellowknife. In recent years, the number of unsheltered people living in the city has increased, as have visible homeless encampments.
Research has indicated Indigenous people are overrepresented among those experiencing homelessness in Yellowknife and contributing factors include the legacy of residential schools, the foster care system, education barriers, economic instability and evictions.
Opinions expressed by NWT politicians, business owners, advocates and other residents on how best to address homelessness and related issues have varied.
