People First Radio – June 25, 2026

People First Radio – June 25, 2026

What drives someone to seek a sense of home, and what happens when housing stops feeling like it belongs to people at all? This People First Radio instalment brings together big-picture policy talk and grassroots theatre to examine how housing, community and wellbeing are tightly tied together.

Journalist and author Jessica Barrett, fresh from writing *No Place Like Home*, talks with host Joe Pugh about what she calls “our insane housing system.” She traces how North America’s obsession with housing as an investment has “really gotten very far away from an idea of home that is more holistic,” where belonging, safety, familiarity and time in a place matter as much as bricks and mortar.

Barrett breaks down the dominance of for‑profit housing, why luxury builds don’t magically make rents cheaper, and how past co‑op housing in Canada shows that different choices are possible. Her central argument? “We can’t solve our housing crisis until we solve our crisis of home,” and that means bringing emotional intelligence into planning – asking how people actually feel about change instead of waving graphs at them.

She also links socially cohesive neighbourhoods to better health, less loneliness and stronger communities. The second half shifts to the forest stage of Reconciliation Theatre, where producer Tom Rokeby and the cast and director of *Women of the Fur Trade* explain how an Indigenous-led company is creating what they describe as a “safe space” for telling Indigenous stories through comedy and history.

Cast members talk about reconnecting with theatre, feeling grounded rehearsing on ancestral land, and becoming “a family in the end” through the rehearsal process. Anyone interested in housing, community care, reconciliation, or how art can bind people together will find plenty to chew on here – and maybe a nudge to ask: what does “home” really mean to you?