Bridging Divides is a powerful documentary featuring voices from diverse backgrounds. Discover new insights on homelessness and explore solutions to build safer, more inclusive communities.

Filmmakers invited five individuals from diverse backgrounds to participate in a Brokered Dialogue to share their perspectives about homelessness, public space and safety in their community. A brokered dialogue is a filmmaking technique that brokers a series of conversations among people with different perspectives about a complex social issue to foster critical thinking.

Using a case study of three mid-size cities in Canada (Brantford, Cambridge and Guelph), the film features a conversation among two people with lived experience of homelessness and housing precarity, a service provider, business owner, and a member of law enforcement about the causes and consequences of homelessness, public safety, and ways forward. Bridging Divides provides a greater understanding about homelessness among diverse members of the community with the goal of helping to move towards positive, solutions-focused responses that help build feelings of safety and a sense of belonging for all.

 

Tickets are appreciated but not required for in-person attendance. Follow the link below.

 

Two ways to attend:

Get your ticket to attend in person at 232 King St. N, Waterloo

or

Register for the Zoom livestream

Admission/registration is free!

Watch the trailer

 

Panelists

 

Mauleek Vipul Bhatt is Key Holder with the WINS program at the Sanguen Health Centre in Kitchener. Mauleek arrived in Canada in 2013 as an international student. After graduating with a (second) bachelor’s degree in computer science he experienced a wrongful dismissal and layoffs. He was working for Skip the Dishes and DoorDash when his car broke down and he could not afford to fix it. Evicted for nonpayment of rent, Mauleek  couch surfed for a while but was soon on the street. He spent three years in and out of shelters, volunteering at organizations like Ray of Hope and House of Friendship helping unsheltered people. He got back on his feet when an individual trusted him to live in a tiny home in their backyard for six months. Mauleek works with the Social Development Centre – Waterloo Region sharing his lived experience in various circles, and has been involved with the City of Kitchener’s Lived Expertise Working Group, the Plan to End Chronic Homelessness, and the Realizing the Right research project.

 

Erin Dej is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University. She has been studying homelessness for the past 15 years, guided by the lived experts she works with. Erin’s research focuses on the social exclusion of unhoused people, including the criminalization of homelessness. Erin is the author of A Complex Exile: Homelessness and Social Exclusion in Canada (UBC Press).

 

Sharon Felker moves through this world with deep empathy and a nurturing spirit. Her strength and courage to overcome any challenge, including lived experience with poverty, loss, and a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2021 has given Sharon a deeper sense of joy for life and a passion to make changes at the community level that will inspire others. Her warm, cheerful personality has proved to be an asset in one-on-one interactions as well as in groups, and she brings innovative ideas and solutions with her out-of-the-box creative thought process. Sharon is a passionate self-taught artist who was able to attend art classes under the direction of Eleni Bakopoulos and has successfully re-created two masterworks and several original pieces. Sharon loves music, tarot cards and reading.

 

Moderated by Laura Pin (she/her), Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University. She received her PhD from in Political Science from York University. Her community-engaged research program explores how democratic participation, policy design, and community engagement shape responses to complex social problems including homelessness and housing policy.

 

Introductory remarks by Carrie Sanders, Professor of Criminology and Director of the Centre for Research on Security Practices at Wilfrid Laurier University. She is the co-principal investigator on the From NIMBY to Neighbour research project that created Bridging Divides.  Her research has focused broadly on practices and technologies used to address community safety and human security. Her research has been published in high impact, international journals such as Gender & Society, British Journal of Criminology and Policing & Society and has received national funding by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.