People First Radio – December 19, 2024People First Radio – December 19, 2024
People First Radio
Conversations focus on housing inequality for Canadians with disabilities, including debates over inclusive housing and the Canada Disability Benefit, and on new tools to reduce stigma around substance use alongside a chess-based restorative justice programme for youth. The episode centres on how structural decisions shape mental health, disability and addiction-related outcomes.
0:00•20 Dec 2024
Housing, Stigma and Chess: Putting People First in Justice and Recovery
Episode Overview
- People with disabilities in Canada face higher rates of homelessness, unsafe housing conditions and financial insecurity, with poverty identified as a core systemic barrier.
- Housing inclusivity means disabled people living in ordinary homes and communities with portable supports, rather than being concentrated in group homes or institutions.
- Concerns are raised that the proposed Canada Disability Benefit is restricted to too few people and offers too little money to meaningfully reduce poverty.
- A language-checking tool aims to flag and rephrase stigmatising terms about substance use on social media, helping users adopt more empathetic wording.
- A chess-based restorative justice programme for youth focuses on building executive functions such as impulse control, working memory and cognitive flexibility as practical life skills.
“It’s not that complicated, but it starts with where your belief system is.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? People First Radio lines up three very different stories that all point to the same theme: systems matter just as much as individual effort. First up, housing and disability take centre stage. Canadian Human Rights Commission manager Carleen Mcginty talks through new data showing people with disabilities are more likely to experience homelessness, miss rent or mortgage payments, and live in unsafe homes.
She stresses that, “poverty is a key systemic barrier,” and argues that people with disabilities must be involved in designing solutions, from better data collection to truly accessible housing and supports. In a complementary conversation, Inclusion Canada CEO Krista Carr digs into “housing inclusivity” for people with intellectual disabilities. She lays out stark numbers on poverty, institutionalisation and waitlists, and questions why disabled people are still “warehoused” in group homes and nursing homes.
Carr urges a shift away from segregated models toward ordinary housing with portable supports, and sharply sums up current policy as “too little or too few” when talking about the proposed Canada Disability Benefit. The episode then changes gears to language and stigma around substance use. Drexel University researcher Shadi Rezepoor shares work on a large language model-based “stigmacheck” tool for social media.
Think grammar checker, but for wording that labels people as “addicts” or “crackheads” instead of using more respectful, empathetic language. The goal is to highlight where stigma sits in a sentence and offer kinder alternatives. Rounding things off, Chess for Life staff member Jade Oldfield describes a restorative justice programme in Alberta where youth in the criminal justice system can be sentenced to 25 hours of chess.
The game becomes a practical lesson in impulse control, thinking ahead, and flexibility—skills that can support better choices off the board too. If you care about recovery, justice and dignity, this one asks a simple question: what would change if systems were actually built with people in mind?
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