I know what it’s like to be without a safe place. I grew up underhoused — living in motels, camping trailers or with roommates, squeezed into a single room with my mom and sister. Later, I lived in my car. These experiences shaped me as much as my academic work in recovery spaces and years of street outreach.

I write as someone who has lived it, studied it and worked it.

I also know addiction. If I relapsed on my drug of choice — alcohol — I could do it legally in thousands of socially accepted “safe consumption sites.” More than 62 per cent of total substance-use costs in Canada are from legal substances, and alcohol is the costliest drug. In 2020, alcohol cost Canada $19.7 billion — 40 per cent of substance-use costs — and led to 117,871 hospitalizations, 10 times more than opioids .

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