Urban geographer joins SFU Geography to investigate links between the climate crisis and housing insecurity

Samantha Thompson is a community-engaged housing researcher who uses feminist care theory to examine the relationships between housing insecurity and the climate crisis. Her goal is to move progressive housing policy forward and contribute to renter-driven climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.

As issues of affordability and unpredictable markets continue to drive housing insecurity, and communities are more frequently confronted with the realities of the climate crisis, Thompson is bringing her research to Simon Fraser University.

This September, Thompson joins SFU’s Department of Geography as an assistant professor in urban geographies of climate crisis, where she’ll be advancing understandings of the connections between climate, housing and health and well-being.

“We are currently on a path where the gap between those who are protected from climate crisis impacts and those who are not continues to widen, fueled by those who can afford to pay for new, retrofitted and green buildings and those who are left living in some of the oldest, least climate-safe buildings that are also consequently the most affordable,” says Thompson.

Exposure to extreme heat, like that experienced during heat domes, can cause severe health risks, including dehydration, heat stress and fatigue. Thompson explains that in some cases, being insecurely housed during these events can be a matter of life and death.

“The 2021 heat dome resulted in the loss of at least 619 lives in B.C. Most people who died lived in housing without adequate cooling systems, tenants were disproportionately impacted and a majority of deaths occurred indoors,” says Thompson. “What this means is that for our region, the drivers and effects of the climate crisis are inseparable from experiences of housing.”

Through two main research streams, Thompson works to improve and implement policy responses that recognize climate and housing as interconnected issues. In the first, she investigates residents’ experiences in Vancouver housing co-ops, how the climate crisis impacts these experiences, and climate mitigation and adaptation strategies in co-ops.

The second, Thompson explains, is an international collaboration looking at how extreme heat, amongst other effects of the climate crisis, impact tenants’ experiences of housing insecurity and at how policies and by-laws contribute to climate-related rent increases, evictions and displacement.

In both research avenues, Thompson applies a feminist care theory lens, looking at the provision of care and support throughout issues of housing insecurity and climate crises.