Episode 1: Laura Mae Lindo
0:24 Adam Cresswell:
Hey everybody . This is Adam Cresswell, and if you're joining for the first time, I am the host of this podcast that we affectionately and also quite seriously call “Winter Is Coming”. This is a podcast on housing justice in Kitchener, Waterloo Refuin and beyond. And of course, that is what we call it now on our maps. But we're talking about the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishnaabe and Neutral Peoples, who for thousands and thousands of years stewarded this land much better than settlers do now and did not in that time run into the same types of widespread systemic problems with housing justice that we have in our settler capitalist system. And so we are chatting in this podcast over the next few weeks about housing justice. You might have heard that term before in different ways. You might have heard that there's a housing crisis, and there certainly is both in this country and beyond. You might have heard about affordable housing. You might have heard about soaring house prices. These are all sort of different symptoms and facets of a widespread spread problem. And we, for the purposes of our journey here, are talking about housing justice as a way to chat about the problems in general and how we actually get not just to lower prices on houses or not just about housing people in general. But what goes beyond that? In terms of ‘what does it look like to have a just society where housing truly is enshrined as a right?’And so we have a few guests joining us over the next few weeks. I probably, like many of you listening, am here not as an expert, but more as someone along for the ride to learn from folks who are doing work in different angles. And this week we have Laura May Lindo, who is is the NDP MPP of Kitchener Centre, with us and we're so grateful to have her with us. She has just recently been reelected in Kitchener Centre. She has been gracious enough to join us today and to kick off this podcast and these conversations to chat about her work at Queen's Park as a community member, a community leader and activist in Kitchener, Waterloo Region, and maybe even where the topic personally touches Laura. So, Laura, we're so grateful to have you with us today and here on the podcast. So thanks very much for being here.
3:15 Laura Mae Lindo:
Oh, thank you so much for inviting me.
3:17 Adam Cresswell:
So we know that you're an MPP for Kitchener Center. You're just reelected in the last provincial election. Tell us just as an intro so people can kind of get their bearings-.Being an MPP for Kitchener Center, what does that look like on a day to day basis? Are you at Queen’s Park nine to five? Are you there half the time? What does it look like to kind of both be there, advocating on a provincial level, but also be a community leader here in Kitchener and Waterloo Region?
3:50 Laura Mae Lindo
That's actually a really interesting question. Where I am physically located when doing the work is sometimes left to the whim of the Premier. So I'm a member of the official opposition, and as such, it's not us that sets the Queen's Park agenda, but it's actually the government members. So in this case, the Conservative Government. I'm currently on an adjournment from Queen’s Park. The government has us coming back in October, I think it's the 25th, just after the municipal election, right? So we'll be back at Queen’s Park. There’s an actual public schedule, so people can know when we would be sitting at Queen’s Park, but we sit Monday to Thursday and generally in regular times, we would be there three weeks of every month. One of the weeks we all spend in our constituency or in our riding so that we can help in our constituency office and meet with folks and that kind of stuff. There's a pretty long break over the winter holidays, and then we get back in session in February. That said, when there's a crisis, you'll often hear the official opposition demanding that we get back to work at Queen’s Park and the government will sometimes call us back. So this session, we were elected in June and we were sort of immediately brought to Queen’s Park to start a little early. So it kind of it kind of depends. But that said, no matter where you are, the advocacy keeps going, and I think that's the most important thing.
5:31 Adam Cresswell:
Awesome. Yeah, thanks for that. Because I think a lot of people are familiar with MPPs during campaigns, hopefully, but then kind of wonder, not wonder in a negative way, but just don't know what it is actually like on the day to day. And you've been tremendously active on social media and I would say in media in general, advocating for both Kitchener- Waterloo and for a more just an inclusive province in terms of policy and legislation. And so I feel like even though I don’t even live in your riding, I ended up following you on Facebook, I think doing a webinar, might have been an anti-racism webinar. My girlfriend lived in Kitchener Centre and I was jealous that she got to vote in your riding and vote for you. I think your work has been really visible, not that visibility is everything. We know there's so much more that goes on behind the scenes, but I know I really appreciate the way that you've been able to bring attention to issues throughout the last few years, and particularly in a time of pandemic that we're continuing to be in and advocating at the provincial government and demanding that they do better.
6:55 Laura Mae Lindo:
That may have been one of my hashtags. I think.
6:58 Adam Cresswell:
It was. Yeah. Thank you. Clear to the point. I love it. And again, that's something that I hope we would all want, no matter where we're coming from, from a political perspective, we always want to see and know, actually in an encouraging way, in an empowering way, that we are capable of doing better. And so that's a great kind of segue into chatting about how we start to do better when it comes to housing justice and really recognizing that right now, across this country, and really especially in this province, there is a huge problem. Housing justice is where we want to get to. Housing injustice is really where we find ourselves existing, and this is a problem that goes beyond just very high prices for market real estate houses to folks who are many phases away from even being able to entertain that idea of purchasing. And so what was your first introduction to housing justice? Or again, you might have been more termed as affordable housing or housing policy. How did this come to your attention? Maybe first, perhaps even before you were in Queen’s Park.
8:29 Laura Mae Lindo:
That's also another really interesting question. I was trying to think and place where this advocacy was kind of rooted in my own lived experience and I realized that it was actually well before I had my name on a ballot. My mom used to_______she didn't have loads of money, but she came from a finance background and she knew that investing in property was really important. And I think if we sort of stick a pin in that and think about the realities of anti-black racism on this land, anti- indigenous racism on this land, we were often kept out of the housing market. There was a time where if you were a black woman, you couldn't own property to begin with. And in fact, there were times where we were considered property. So with that being the case, my mummy always thought that the best investment for her kids would be to have property. But over the years, having property and knowing that you would be renting out that property, she wanted to make sure that she was doing something positive in the world around her. And so there was a program that was available in the municipalities where they would pay part of the rent and, if you were fleeing violence, you could move into one of these homes. The sort of vision behind it was that a woman fleeing violence, especially a woman with children fleeing violence would never have access to a safe home. And we have a shelter system and all of that kind of stuff, but those aren't safe spaces for people and they can't rebuild there. So in this program, the person that owns the home, the actual landlord, would be able to know that their mortgage was being covered. It wasn't about making extra money or making a mint on this home, but it was about just making sure the home was a place where people would stay safe. And so, as my mom was part of that program, she just sort of said it to me in passing. And so that sort of always stuck with me, that home ownership wasn't about me, but it was about community. So now when you jump ahead and I'm in this position where not only are we in a housing crisis, but I'm an elected official representing the lowest income riding within Waterloo Region at a time where encampments are becoming the only option for many people. And in 2022 in particular, there was one encampment in the riding that at the start of the election had, I think, about six tents and by the end of the election had 60. And we're fighting whether or not the Region will put toilets on site for folks to all of that kind of stuff. I realize the reason that I was so quick to be public was about my sense of what we need to do. To do better. Not in a mean sense, but literally to center on people and the most vulnerable in particular. Then we've got to recognize that these are real people with real needs. And then we need to use our tools. And that was rooted in something that mummy had shown me just by making this little decision not only to invest for her kids, but to invest for community.
12:00 Adam Cresswell:
Yeah. Wow. I think that's what's really powerful-recognizing this isn't just an aspect of your job or just something that has come up in the last couple of years. And this is not a flavor of the week or month issue. It's certainly at a tipping point in 2022. And I think this Fall, in particular, as we look ahead to the fact that so many things that kind of, for one way or another, whether intentionally or not, helped protect encampments a little bit, with so many COVID restrictions and legislation now being rolled back, there's a real risk for those folks who are part of the community at Victoria Street in Kitchener or in Victoria Park at this time, and even the folks at a better tent city, which in an encouraging way is partnering, or rather is being partnered with by the municipal government of Waterloo Region. But that all across here. We're looking ahead to this winter of 2022- 2023, which for many of us, when we look at that and 1s what I do every July because I hate winter in general, I want it to be summer all the time. 1s I can deal with it for Christmas and then right after done my birthday's in February. And I'm like the worst month, the worst month, the armpit of the year. And it's easy for me to say that as someone who is housed to say the first thing I do in September or July is look up the Old Farmer’s almanac. And I'm like, what kind of winter is it going to be this year? And then it's always just terrible. And it's easy for me to go, I'm going to hate that. But the reality for our siblings, our friends, our community members, our neighbors who live in encampments is that that winter is approaching right now. And the risks associated with not having supports in place, with not being supported by government is real. And the criminalization of the encampment that we've seen in a particularly vicious fashion in places like Toronto and Hamilton and other places and in Waterloo Region at times is certainly disturbing. So to know for you as well that this is an issue that a topic, I should say, that has lived experience for yourself and through your family is a good reminder for us that this is not just a COVID issue or an issue that is down the street, on Victoria Street. This is something that really should affect us all in different ways. Can you share a little bit about how this work has started to intersect with your work locally in Kitchener-Waterloo?
15:12 Laura Mar Lindo:
Absolutely. So a lot of people know that you can contact your member of provincial parliament when you need help. But a lot of people don't reach out to their member of provincial parliament unless that is the absolute last resort. And so one of the things that I ask my team to do is to keep track of the trends of calls that come into our office, especially when the House is sitting and I'm at Queen’s Park, because you are physically disconnected from the riding in those moments, right? And you're talking about things at a high level. So at Queen’s Oark, it's these overarching umbrella policies because they have to account for every region, whether it's rural or city or all of that stuff. And so we were receiving a number of phone calls around housing, and I knew firsthand that housing needs to be a nuanced conversation, right? So, again, when I think about starting with mummy and these homes that she was renting, you might assume that that means I came from all sorts of wealth. But we didn't come from all sorts of wealth. We came from creative ways of using the little bit of money that we had to keep giving back and using our position of influence whenever we could. But that also came sometimes with being very, very close to losing said house or when I moved out on my own. You might live with a partner and a relationship breaks down and you don't know where you're going to move. Speaking to more and more people. I was in the renter market for many, many years. That meant that my housing was actually tied to the will of a landlord. During the pandemic, one of the places that we were renting in Kitchener, the landlord decided to sell to take advantage of the market, but not to take advantage. Sometimes it was to take advantage of the market, but it was all for this particular person. They were ready to move on to a different stage of their life. So they didn't want to have that responsibility, and they were very good to us to make sure that it was okay. And so when they made that choice, that meant that I had to find a house in the middle of the housing market with three little kids, and I'm a single mom. And so I was very close to not having a place to go. I had to call on friends and such to think about what would my backup plan be? And not having family here, those decisions are pretty tough. So that's all happening at the same time that we're getting an increase of phone calls from everybody. During the pandemic around housing, we had phone calls from landlords who were also trying to do something similar to what my mummy was doing, to have a second house to support people in community that couldn't hold on to that house and were worried about the tenants. We had phone calls from other folks who were trying to figure out what to do because they had gotten an eviction notice, because they were getting a top up from the government, and the money for the top up was coming to their house beyond the date that they had, beyond their days. Right? Yeah.
18:29 Laura Mae Lindo:
All of these things. There were all sorts of things, and some of them were like, okay, this program is not working, and people are getting eviction notices literally every month solely because the government is producing the checques too late. And so maybe that's something that we can get the government to fix. But then we also have folks that can't be in those houses because there's other needs that they have. So then we started to talk a little bit more, not just about affordable housing but deeply affordable housing and housing that was supportive-supportive housing as opposed to affordable housing. And in the meantime, while we're having those conversations in community here, not just in Kitchener Center, but in Waterloo Region. 2s At Queen's Park, they're talking about, you know, ending any kind of assistance for those top-ups and not really so concerned about affordable housing or accessible housing. The amount of people we found out that the wait list for affordable housing in the region can be as long as ten years. But if you need accessible housing, you're looking at 11, 12, 13 years because they're only making one or two units in an affordable housing complex that are accessible. And so when all of those nuances start to come to you, you start to realize that you need a 1s rethink on what your priorities are in public office. You come in with a bit of a plan of what it is that you think you're going to be doing, but now reality hits and you've got to figure out who are the partners on the ground, like who's providing the mental health support to folks? Where is there something innovative that's coming to try to address this? How can we encourage people to not think that there's a one size fits all solution, but instead that we need multiple solutions that people can access as they navigate even from an encampment to being housed? What does that look like and what supports do they need? So sorry for the long winded nature of my response, but it's how everything started to evolve, right? Yeah.
20:37 Adam Cresswell:
And as you said, it speaks to the fact that this is just an incredibly nuanced problem. And I also want to use the word complex. And I'm careful when I use that because sometimes when we say it's a complex problem, a lot, lot of us, particularly, I think those of us who come from a lot of intersections of privilege. When you hear a complex problem, it becomes permission to go, “Well, there's nothing I can do.. It's too hard or it's for someone else to do. That's for Representative Lindo to do. That's for the Premier or the federal cabinet to deal with”. Absolutely. We want our elected officials, and you sign up for the job. And so we want them to hold that responsibility 1s with care. But recognizing that these particularly when it comes to how we can respond to the housing crisis that are crises and housing justice and injustice that are in our neighborhoods, these are neighborhoods that are filled with our neighbors. And so we as regular, everyday, whatever label you want to put on it, people as the person who lives on Garden Street or on Jacob Street or on Victoria Street, wherever, that these are our neighbors. And for those of us whose organization comes from a faith background, a neighbor ethic is super central to the path with Jesus that The Hub and Trinity takes. And recognizing that doesn't have to just be a spiritual thing, but actually a really lived, practical reality. And the nuance is not just as you said, figuring out the complex legislative systems. But how do we respond to people in our community? And you mentioned as well that it's not just affordable housing, but supportive housing that is often needed, acceptable housing. And that speaks to something we're going to talk a little bit more about in a future episode. But the housing continuum and the idea that soaring house prices in market real estate is the far, far kind of end of one side of that continuum. Affordable housing, community housing, supportive housing, transitional housing, emergency shelters and those who are street involved. What we would have traditionally talked about as homelessness are all other phases along that continuum. Can I pause
23:19 Laura Mae Lindo:
Can I pause you there?
23:23 Laura Mae Lindo:
But I want to pause you there because one of the things that I came to realize rather quickly was that the things that were originally proposed as emergency, quote unquote, solutions became the be all-end all solution that people started to advocate for. And that was problematic. So, like, a shelter is not the solution. The shelter is not a solution to anything. And so we need to start to really see this continuum and think of transitioning in housing more broadly so that we don't continue to see a particular segment of the population as problematic. >And so they don't deserve all of our attention and our love and our care and compassion.<And another group of people is totally different from that. So the example that I'm thinking of is this is very early on, it would have been 2018, 2019, because it was before the pandemic, I had received a phone call from some folks at Reception House. So for those that don't know, Reception House is a settlement agency and they help to house newcomers. And I had received a phone call from them because there were newcomers that were coming into the Region. We are a target destination for newcomers from all over the place. We have a very high settlement newcomer population here, but less settlement supports than we would like. Right? And so I thought they were just going to call and ask for the regular advocacy stuff, which I'm more than willing to do and I do. Right. But they called with a specific issue. And the issue was that the families were coming into town and they were living in these temporary homes while waiting for a permanent address. And because they didn't have a permanent address, the schools that they were zoned to would not let them register their children because apparently the children needed to have a permanent address in order to be able to get through the system. And so these kids would come in and for months at a time, not be registered in school because our housing crisis was starting to also become quite prominent, So the families were doing what they could and Reception House was trying to help. And they would have tutors come and like, because
25:55 Adam Cresswell:
that's a whole school year. That's grade one, that's grade three. Just potentially gone during a time when kids have already had school years interrupted and actually were interrupted in Ontario before they started by a year back and forth. My nephew is in grade one this year and months for him that would be so catastrophic to socialization and making friends, aside from just the classroom learning stuff.
26:25 Laura Mae Lindo:
That's right. And to know that that potential impact was tied to housing was a big flag for me, that we have to think differently about housing. We have to think about how important it is to having you be able to to achieve your potential, how important housing is to having you be able to really care for your mental health, how important it is. When we talk about the social determinants of health, it is tied to literally everything. It is not separate and apart from our reality. So that's happening at the same time that you have folks that are trying to navigate a mental health system that also is not working for them. While we have a rise in the opioid crisis and a fight for safe supply, and we've got all of these different things that are happening and what's at the root, if we don't address this housing crisis, then we're not able to actually become the community that we want. So then the flip side of it is, if folks that are struggling publicly, so we're seeing tents erected in public spaces, which apparently is a big problem, because if they were erected in a place and it was quiet and nobody saw it, nobody would actually care about folks. Right. So, as they do their own advocacy, in their own way, by their own means, with what they have available to them, we can't turn our back on them because we will never, never be the community that we say we want to be. We will never be a community that loves each other, that cares for each other, that's thoughtful of each other's plight. And then we will never fix those problems because we'll never think that we have to. 1s So it's made me have to think very seriously about what I want to do for my own position of influence as a member of provincial parliament. I'm not willing to say, well, that's federal government's jurisdiction. That's the municipality's jurisdiction. Well, that's the regional chair's jurisdiction. No, if we're all people, then let us sit down and start fixing the problem collaboratively, because those sort of siloed systems are clearly not working. And I'm actually quite proud of all of the community members who are using what they have to try and advocate to the best of their ability because these systems are letting them down. I feel like we're at a point now where more and more people are understanding how quickly housing can be taken away, especially during the pandemic, which means that there's more opportunity for people to start to advocate for better systems and social networks around each other.
29:10 Adam Cresswell:
Yeah. And I think that's one of my big hopes, in a way, is that even though, as we said, the problem of soaring prices and market real estate is something that is a particular phase and we have to have a particular amount of privilege and wealth and circumstance to be able to even be in those positions. But that the highlighting of this problem. And as you said, I know many people, including immediate family, who have been renovicted or have been affected, impacted, and like, similar to your story, have had folks who have kids and who have had months where they have not had 1s their own place very luckily in these circumstances. We luckily had a family unit and system and extended family that were able to support and fill those gaps. And I say luckily very seriously because there's so many people who don't have that, especially if we're talking about newcomers into Canada that don't have those systems in place, that don't have that extended network of family. And more and more then there's young people in particular who are trying to pay, continually increasing if they're in the University or Colleges system and continually increasing tuition and housing in cities where 1s they are able to basically try and figure out how can they how can you go lower than food basics or no frills to afford groceries when even like, I walked I literally walked into no frills. And right now, like a block of cheese. I'm a cheese fiend. And I'm like, I got to have my cheddar, and it's like, $9. And I'm like, this is what I'm at. No frills. I'm not at Fortino’s. Like, what's going on? And so this problem being, again, so nuanced and so that it affects the lived reality of everyone, I think is really critical to understand. And my hope is to go back to that. My hope is that highlighting pieces of this should connect us and hopefully draw us deeper into what the core roots of this problem are. And like you said, what's been invisible or maybe willfully invisible to so many for so long, but now is visible in terms of the need for encampments and for folks who are street involved and who are not able to enter not able to get into transitional supportive housing, are not able to enter the shelter system for a myriad of reasons and as we can see are needing each other. Are needing community with each other. And so my hope is that people recognize that this is an opportunity for us to look deeper than simply lower real estate market housing prices. And of course, I hope that that also occurs, but that our community members, so many of them, need more than that. And you chatted about the idea that these emergency shelters have become sort of the default. Oh, well, we've got the solution. And as you said, that it. I never thought of it put like that. And it made me think of the image of 1s if you're in a physical health emergency and the ambulance comes, the goal is not just to ride around in the ambulance for as long as possible and hopefully then eventually your wounds will heal up and you'll be able to go back down. Exactly. 1s This is supposed to be a vessel in an emergency situation to come in as critical triage and care in order to set you then along the path, to get you to the hospital, to get you to see the doctor, to be able to set you on the path to healing and to health. And we've just kind of settled for the emergency shelter system, which in Kitchener Waterloo when I was a kid, there were multiple. I grew up in the United Church and I knew multiple United Churches who worked with at the time, one of the big organizations was “out of the cold”. And I remember as a teenager seeing those organizations have to close, not because the churches weren't able to host them, but because the supports, the funding, the staffing, the resources were starting to be drained. And so this, 1s particularly in Kitchener-Waterloo. I know from friends who have worked at the Working Centre that roughly give or take, and this actually was last year when I chatted with my friend Keegan. So this might even be different from now, but that's what we traditionally call homelessness. Or for folks who are street involved, that that has tripled the number of people in the last few years. And we have this image of single folks or individuals, but actually, when we look in, we know, as you talked about, there are families who are struggling with this. There are literally kids 1s who are having to figure this out alongside their families. Can you talk a little bit about 2s developments, maybe positive or negative, that you've seen in Kitchener-Waterloo when it comes to housing justice?
34:45 Laura Mae Lindo:
I can. So I would argue that when the universe is setting us up to be able to solve a big problem, the problem becomes more and more visible. Right? So I'm going to just pause that for a second to say this, because I just want to say where this is coming from. Before I was elected, I was the Director of Diversity and Equity at Wilfred Laurier University. And when I got there in 2014, the liberal government had just changed some policy or some legislation to ensure that colleges and universities paid attention to sexual and gender- based violence on campuses. So that portfolio ended up being assigned to me. So I was overseeing this portfolio. I remember there was a sexual violence advocate that was or sexual violence prevention advocate that was hired in my office. She'd been doing this work forever. Shout out to Sarah Scanlon for the amazing work that she does in community. And I remember her saying, when you start to do this work, you start to see it all over the place. And then the folks at the Sexual Assault Support Center reiterated similar things. When they would do trainings, they would tell us, when you start to actually do this work authentically, you will build a trusting relationship so more survivors will reach out to you and disclose. Right. So you've got to be prepared to hold those disclosures and also be solutions focused. So as my mummy says, I tell you that to tell you this with housing, we're seeing the exact same kind of thing where as we become more aware of the nuances of what stands in the way of somebody being safely sheltered. Not just sheltered, but safely sheltered. As we start to add those adjectives into our understanding of housing and into the goals that we set for housing, then the problem seems bigger. But if we work at it collectively, we can start to do something, whether it's legislative changes or investments that we start fighting for, et cetera. So in the shifts that we've seen, I think that it's actually quite amazing that we're talking about the need to invest in the social supports that are provided to folks like the folks at Sanguine. That we're fighting to ensure that people that are on the ground with those that are street-involved are given some of the investments that they should have been having from ages ago. Has it happened yet? No. Are we advocating and being very vocal about the need for that investment? Absolutely. If you look at things like ‘Reallocate Waterloo Region.’ That's part of what they're trying to talk about. We're working with a finite amount of money. Like anybody that has a finite amount of money, you've got to look at what you are investing in and it's not working, clearly. So what can we invest in now? So you reallocate funding and you have to keep being open to the need to reallocate funding because things will shift. As you solve one problem, something else might arise.. Then you've got to rethink what you're doing and that shouldn't pose tensions or be contentious to say. And so I think that we're at a place where we're having the discussion which is hugely important. We're seeing some investments and we're also becoming wise to the game of the systems around us, right? And we're telling people, no, that's not going to work. We need to do this. We're in a position where folks are electing people into positions of influence that are willing to say the things that need to be said at those tables. That's important. We're in a position in Waterloo Refuin where you've got elected officials who do want to use their positions of influence to do better and I want to believe that everybody wants to do better. So now the question is how? So the next step, and the part that seems to be slow and I wish we could just snap our fingers and make it quicker, is that we would actually just listen to the people on the ground because they are telling us what they need, right? Like, people will call my office and tell me there are long wait lists for mental health and addiction support. They'll tell me that there is nowhere for them to go, but they know they need the help. They'll tell me that they need more accessible housing. They'll tell me how long they've been waiting for an accessible unit and what they've had to do to navigate in the interim. They'll tell me that they're working full time but they're living in their car. They're telling us what's going on. And so I think right now, the hardest part is for us to ensure that we inform any of these investments with the actual things that people are saying, not what I think needs to happen. From my vantage point, from my house where I can access the bathroom whenever I feel like it, but from their vantage point where they can't. And so what can we do within our toolkit to try and make things just a touch easier for them? Because what we also know, I'm also quite spiritual, what I know is that when community members feel loved and cared for and seen, things shift for them. When they feel like they are not seen and unworthy and nobody cares for them, then spirals in the opposite direction of what we want for them to thrive are what happens. And just that the mere fact that we've got so many community members that call me with all of the even the emergency shelters community will call my office and say they're worried about this emergency shelter because it's close to a school, but they know that that shelter is needed. So what can they do to help in the bigger cause? Right? Yes. I'll get some calls from people saying shut them down because there's a variety of opinions and also it's based on fear. And there are real issues that are happening in the world around us. We can't pretend like they're not happening. But I'm getting more and more calls from people asking me how do I engage in a way that is meaningful, that is going to help people because I care about them. Right. And I just need to figure out what need to do to demonstrate that care in a real, tangible way.
41:17 Adam Cresswell:
Yeah. 4s When you chatted about the fact that one of the encouraging things is how we are becoming wise to the game of systems and the ways that systems and certain agents and agencies are working to exploit or to hoard. Or especially in the housing market in Canada, just to speculate, to make it a game of profit that we are hopefully encouragingly through great movements on social media platforms and with the ability to have just a greater access to information 2s and especially for those for the youth and young adults that I work with at the Hub. I think that it's really encouraging to know that I feel like a lot of young people are becoming very wise to that system. 2s Yet I know from my experience, and I'm going to speak totally personally here, it's so easy for me to then just become wise to the system and send out the tweet or roll my eyes at the comment from a politician or to chat. And for me, I struggle with the lie. I'm always the smartest person in the room. So it's easy for me to be wise to it and sit back, but then to take that knowledge, to take that understanding and to actually. 2s Transform it into action. I think that's a hard thing for people to understand, especially when, as we talked about, the reality is we're working with a complex problem. And so it's very easy to sit back and send and push send tweets rather than actually start to be engaged. And that's what you've you've really started to highlight here in what you've just chatted about. So 1s for those people who say, what can we do about this? Whether it's something at the neighborhood level or for youth adults, how can they be involved, particularly if they aren't maybe like voting age yet, where can they show up? What do you tell people? How can community members who might say, I'm not an expert, I'm just someone who lives in this neighborhood or this city, what can they do to get involved and make an impact from your perspective?
43:50 Laura Mae Lindo:
So here I'm going to bring us sort of right back to where we started, because at the very beginning of this conversation, you noted that we are engaging in this conversation on land. This is my language now that's been held down care for, loved and stewarded by the Hodnishoni, the Anishnaba and the neutral people. And 1s I want to end and go back to that and begin there for this reason. 3s I had always been taught that with land acknowledgments you've got to make a real connection between the reality that you just had a land acknowledgment, you're likely having a conversation, as we are, on stolen land and the topic of conversation that we're having. Because when you do that, you start to take real lessons from indigenous elders, from the wisdom of indigenous communities, and you start to do things differently, because they have a whole other different way of proceeding and engaging in relationship with each other and with us. Right. Either with us, as those that are settled on the land or, like me, have been settled on the land, right? Sorry. settlers on the land, or, like myself, somebody who's been settled on. 2s And I'm thinking about your question in light of the fact that we're just days away from the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. So September
45:07 Adam Cresswell:
30. Yeah, when we're recording this, this will be released after. But when we are recording, we're just a few days before.
45:13 Laura Mae Lindo
We're just a few days before. And so there's a tendency for us to throw on that orange shirt just like you would hit send on that tweet. And my job here is done because I knew, blah, blah, blah. But Indigenous communities remind us to approach everything from a space of humility. 2s And so from a space of humility, I can propose ideas, potential solutions, but I can't guarantee that any of that is going to work. What I can guarantee is that I will use my position of influence to keep fighting until people can be in a position where they are felt, loved and cared for, held all of this and seen right where they can end, feel safe enough to tell me what it is that they need. Where they can actually tell me what they need. Because they trust that I will use my position of influence to fight for those kinds of investments. So with that as the backdrop, I would say this especially to young people. 1s I don't think that young people realize how powerful a voice they have. And I don't mean young people like it's your first year voting. I mean young people because you are coming in without being jaded. You're coming into these systems with ideas of a potential future that we as older folks might not even be able to see because the system around us has become so normal. It's so normal that if you were, oh my gosh, you're going to lose your house and you don't know what to do. Well, go find the closest
46:48 Adam Cresswell
shelter. Yeah, it's the water we swim in at some point.
46:51 Laura Mae Lindo
That is right. It's become so normalized, this lack and operating from a place of lack and just you've got to live with the lack that we celebrate food cupboards 1s in university settings because we know there are a lot of students that are going hungry. And as you were saying, like the price of food is skyrocketing, people can't afford healthy food. So we get excited. And now, don't get me wrong, we need those things, but those are not solutions to our
47:24 Adam Cresswell
problems. That's right. They are just interim ideas that we have to get somebody through until that solution comes to light. So. 2s Explaining that to people, making sure that that's part of your advocacy when you are doing your work as a young person, talking to your elected officials and telling them that this is what you want to see. 1s Those kinds of things might seem small, but they're major. Because when I hear from young people the vision that they have for a better world, then I get a different kind of mandate, right? I get a different kind of mandate because the young folks are saying to me, we did not ask you to do this so that you could do that, tomfoolery. We asked you to do this because you're supposed to be building a better world for me. Hello? Right? And so that, to me, is super important. I think it's really important to show up at the protest. And I mean, it was talking about winter. It was super cold when we were on Sterling, when a smaller encampment had been bulldozed and a number of us came together and literally it was freezing. That's what I remember 1s from the pictures and such. But I remember that it was freezing and these folks were in an encampment on the side of the street, and nobody really thought about the process and what those small amount of valuables meant to that group of people that were there, right? And so while we're busy saying, wow, it was so cold, they were like, all of the things that I owned are gone. In a world that says your value is placed on how many things you have, we just sort of did
49:09 Laura Mae Lindo
that. Right. And so showing up at those places is super important. 2s But that can't be. That, again, is not your end goal. Your goal is not in this life to be at every protest. Your goal is to make sure that these protests are no longer necessary.
49:24 Adam Cresswell
That's right. Yeah. Right. And when you do show up, ask what's needed. Because I remember also with Sterling that there was a bus shelter and that's where they were storing. They were asking for specific things. They needed some tents, they needed some sleep bags, they needed blankets, they needed they had things that they needed. Which leads me to the other requests that I have for folks that are listening when trying to figure out what you can do to support others that are in need.
49:55 Laura Mae Lindo
Ask them. 1s Like literally? Just literally. Literally. Because we come up with some very fine things that we think people need all the time. Right. And then we even build legislation on what we think they need. But until we actually speak to people, then we aren't making them feel seen and heard and all of that stuff. So we often miss the point on what it is that they need. Right. And so bringing anything to those places, 2s a protest isn't going to necessarily help the cause, but bringing what they need to the protest is going to help them feel felt and heard, all of that stuff, right? Yeah. So I think that's also very important. There's also traditional tools. Like, 1s I don't think that it's one or the other. I think it has to be this and all of these other things. Write to your elected officials. Write one letter, put everybody on it so that everybody knows that you're watching all of them. And then they're all fighting, trying to figure out what's that person going to say. 1s Do it. Write us all. It doesn't even have to be like long letters. Just tell us that you care. Tell us that this is what's important and that you're going to be following up to see what they're doing next. Right. Ask for meetings with us because there's no reason why we can't have these meetings. Right? Show up at community meetings when your elected officials are there. Vote. Vote in every election, right? Because when you're voting, you're actually putting people into positions of influence to try and do this work and vote for folks that you know are actually going to listen. Right? And if you feel they aren't, call them up and tell them, because I think it's really important. Important.
51:46 Adam Cresswell
And the municipal elections are literally coming up. They will still be approaching as this conversation is released. And I think this is hopefully something we're becoming more wise to. I have to ask myself, and I think especially around the time of when I was in university, maybe eight to ten years ago, a really good, unsettling, disturbing recognition I had, which was, am I more interested in the Us. Presidential race than the actual municipal elections that are happening in my that I can actually get a meeting with those people, that I can actually write to those people? And so recognizing that it's very easy for us to be window watchers or just focus on and again, I hope people do focus on the federal and obviously the provincial level. It's so easy for the municipal level to get missed. And I think especially coming off of I mean, a year ago we had a federal election. A few months ago we had a provincial and now it's kind of the third go around in 13 months. But the need to show up to know that I've had two city councilors themselves knock on our door here. And so recognizing that the access is right there and that so much of this, like you said, we need the federal level, the provincial level, the municipal level and the on the ground organizations and those most importantly with lived experience to be working on these things together. And so to show up to those is important. I think that's really encouraging. And I hope people hear that when you are saying write a letter to us and when you are saying set a meeting with us. Because I think there's this perception, especially when you get past municipal politics, that. 2s Well, I could call, but I'm just going to get someone's staffers staffers, staffers assistant or a volunteer or something, and it's never going to get through. So what's the pointer? Well, if I write this letter and nobody's ever going to actually see it, what's the point? Oh, I would never be able to get a meeting. I mean, as an example, to pull the curtain back, I literally just email for this conversation. I just emailed the, like, hoping Laura listening, the email that's on the website for Representative lindo. And I had that moment too, where I'm like, I don't know if this will actually get through, but I'm going to try. And within a day or so got the message back from someone in your office that you and the office would love to be part of this. And so this is just as a concrete example, I can back up exactly what Laura is saying, that 1s this is something that we can do, we can have these direct connections and make our voice heard. And so for young people yeah. Whether you're actually voting age or not, and for those who are listening, maybe who are of a more elder generation, 1s like you said, it is very easy to get kind of jaded into that notion of 1s the system. And politics and government is just way over here, and there's a wall in between. But to really resist that and to be able to reach out is such an important thing. So I really appreciate you sharing that.
55:06 Laura Mae Lindo
I have to add one other piece to that as well, just because. 4s Yes. Government is actually way far over there. Especially if you're in kitchener and you're trying to get to Toronto and you don't have to wait all day. Go, it is very far, right? And if you're going to go to Ottawa for our federal colleagues, it's far away. But there's also another piece that I think is super important and again, it goes back to being a spiritual person who's landed in in this role. I feel sometimes like I've fallen into this space. 2s Putting a vision of something new that's based on love and care for each other is actually 1s something commendable as well. 2s So when I say to people, write a letter about it or something like that and reach out to me, I can't guarantee that every single email that comes to me gets through to me. Right. I can't even guarantee that every single elected official is going to respond to you right away. 1s Everything is moving and you never know what's going to happen. But I want people to recognize that when they put into the universe the vision of what they want, they are starting the building of what they want. Yeah. And so sometimes that letter isn't necessarily about Laura May's office getting in touch with you and you setting up a meeting. And sometimes it's literally just putting it into the universe. And you would be surprised that you are not the only one who is putting that into the universe. And then that's what actually ends up getting someone's attention, right? Because from a spiritual space, you've got to talk it into being. You've got to believe it and imagine it in order for it to happen. And what stops us in, what makes us frightened is when we say, oh my gosh, we have encampments in the city and we can't imagine what the world could look like. And then you start to document out loud all of the obstacles standing in the way. The government doesn't care, the elected officials aren't listening, there aren't enough supports for this. There's no alternative system for that. Oh my gosh, there's no space in the world for us to build these houses. Absolutely untrue. All of those things can be solved. And you don't have to have every part of the solution. But we do have to start imagining something different. And I think if we sort of encourage people to be part of that imagining not based on elected districts or your age and whether you can vote, but based on your ability to imagine a world that is literally grounded in love, something different can happen.
That's my own little take, though. It's my little takeaway to keep me positive.
58:02 Adam Cresswell
I think that there's such 3s a beauty and a power and a truth in exactly where you brought us here. I think that's kind of a perfect place to land. For those of us who are saying, well, I'm not an expert, or I'm kind of overwhelmed or there's another actually coming up, or I'm kind of jaded by the system, or I have ideas, but I don't know if anyone's going to hear them. 1s To take that as an anchor point 2s to invest it in your heart and your soul and your body. 3s And I think that is something yes, from any perspective, whether you come from a faith or spiritual tradition or not, that the ability to imagine. That 2s one of my favorite activists, Andre Henry, his catchphrases, it doesn't have to be this way. And to be able to imagine something 1s into being that when we walk by the encampment or hear about it or when the elections roll along, to say 1s that we can start to put this out into practice by imagining it, by voicing it is incredible and is something that I would cleave to and hold to as a sustained truth. 1s I think that's a beautiful place to land for today. Thank you so much for being willing to chat and to chat from the perspective of someone who works in Queens Park, as the perspective of someone who grew up with this topic around them and lives 1s with housing justice right there 1s on the landscape. And I'm very grateful personally, and I know those of us at Trinity and the Hub are very grateful for the work that you're doing to imagine and build that kind of world that we want to see. So thanks for being here today and for all the work Representative lindo, that you do.
60:10 Laura Mae Lindo
Thank you again for having me. It's been quite a pleasure and quite powerful to have this conversation with you folks.
60:17 Adam Cresswell
Awesome, thanks. For those who are listening, you will be able to how can they actually follow along 1s with you? Social medias or other outlets and platforms? How can they follow along with your work?
60:32 Laura Mae Lindo
Laura? Oh, you can follow me. My insta and Twitter, it's just my full name, so Laura mae lindo and my Facebook as well. I am not on the TikTok, but that's okay. Nobody neither am I, you know what I mean? I'm like, no, we'll just stick to these ones. But you can definitely you can follow me there and people do dm me and ask me questions and I do get back to them. So reach out anytime. I'll see what I can do.
Adam Cresswell
Awesome. Amazing. And we'll attach those to wherever you're listing this will attach the information to those as well. So thanks so much for joining us. We'll be back in future weeks with other folks. Mike Morris, MP for kitchener at the federal level will be joining us on our next episode. And so it will be great to kind of take a lot of the seeds of this conversation and pour that into the conversation with Mike. So thank you for listening. This is Winter Is Coming and we will chat with you next time.
