From housing instability and infant food insecurity to systemic barriers that keep communities in poverty, three UNB alumni are tackling the root causes. Through evidence-based policy, community collaboration, and a focus on long-term change, they’re redesigning the systems meant to support us all.
Fighting to end homelessness in Newfoundland and Labrador
Doug Pawson (MPhil’07) describes himself as a systems-based thinker focused on social impact. As executive director of End Homelessness St. John’s, he’s been on the front lines as the housing problem in Newfoundland and Labrador’s capital city has rapidly grown over the last few years, just like it has in many cities across Canada.
When asked if systems thinking and design can end homelessness, food insecurity and poverty, he answers with a resounding “yes.”
“By rethinking our systems and pursuing change using data and integrating across all levels of government and communities, we can intervene earlier and actually reach our goal of ending homelessness. But we can’t make real headway independently of each other.
Addressing food insecurity for Canada’s youngest population
When the infant formula shortage crisis hit Canada and the United States in 2022, it revealed a vulnerability of the industrial food system – and distanced us from the United Nations’ Zero Hunger goal. For Dr. Lesley Frank (PhD’13), Acadia University’s Canada Research Chair in food, health and social justice, responding to the crisis – and tackling the broader problem of food insecurity for families in Canada – was not new. Her research over more than 10 years showed that formula and breastfeeding are part of a larger, unsustainable food system, made worse for families who are also experiencing economic hardship.
In her 2020 book Out of Milk: Infant Food Insecurity in a Rich Nation, she explored “the breastfeeding paradox – that those who are least able to afford formula are also most likely to use it.” Her work found that “the sustainability of any food system is determined by whether the producers of a given item can afford to feed themselves and aren’t suffering economic hardship. Breastfeeding infants becomes unsustainable if the producer (the mother) has no economic protection for the labour required.”
Read the rest of Lesley’s story
Redesigning our systems to work for humans
Scott MacAfee (BBA’94) has been working on the difficult challenge of poverty in Canada for over 25 years: first with the Government of New Brunswick at the department of social development and the Economic and Social Inclusion Corporation, then as chair of Canada’s National Advisory Council on Poverty since 2019.
He has learned a few things over that time, but says the most important may be that poverty is about systemic inequity – and has little to do with individuals.
“It’s not about people doing something wrong. Poverty is often generational, hard to escape, or caused by systemic issues at some level. System inequity often keeps people down – especially women, minorities, people with disabilities and rural residents. Plus, Canadians are experiencing increased costs of living and inflation, increased mental health and addictions challenges, but wages, social supports, and health supports have not kept up. Poverty is a systems challenge, and individuals, families and communities are left to deal with it.”
