“Homes not shelters”: co-productions of home in financialized social housing for women in Vancouver, Canada

Abstract

ABSTRACT The financialization of housing, which privileges the exchange value of housing as a commodity over its use value, disproportionately impacts low-income households, women, and people of colour by exacerbating precarious, insecure, and unsafe housing conditions, thereby shaping their experiences of home. In this paper, I engage critical geographies of home and draw on ethnographic work in low-income housing sites for women in Vancouver, Canada. I conceptualize everyday impacts of housing financialization and power relations on co-productions of home by tenants and staff. I argue that a ‘co-production of home’ through processes of home-making and un-making by different housing actors demonstrate that low-income tenants’ experiences of housing and home are impacted by intersecting social hierarchies of power, as well as the financialization of housing. Further, the impacts of housing financialization are resisted through actions like organizational policies from housing providers and tenants’ relationships with their neighbours that produce feelings of community.