Eric Weissman

Dr. Eric Weissman identifies as an addict in recovery. He practices lived experience scholarship. His work is both theoretical and practical, grounded in everyday life and historical perspectives. He is known for his video-ethnographies spanning 30 years of research on the streets, in tiny home communities and other critical spaces for rights-based and practical housing alternatives. In recovery from episodic homelessness and severe Substance Use Disorder (SUD) since 1996, he supports harm reduction practices including, housing and supports for people with SUD. His award-winning academic work theorizing and making the case for in tiny homes began in 1999 in tent camps and tiny home communities like Toronto’s Tent City, which was the subject of his first film, “Subtext-real stories” (2005; 2012; 2019). He lived for a short time at Dignity Village Oregon, the first legal emergency transitional campground in US history, and the main site for his dissertation fieldwork completed at Concordia University in Montreal. In 2014 that dissertation was awarded the Canadian Association of Graduate Studies Distinguished Dissertation Award. In it, he looked at the practical and legal provisions that make a range of housing models, from Housing First to tiny home communities feasible in the context of widespread homelessness in North American cities. He continues to use photos, video, and visual elicitation practices to understand the narratives impacting how social policies are designed, experienced and critiqued. His work begins with a simple question asked of participants in his visual and conventional studies, “how do you see the world, and how might you change it?” He also asks, “what are you willing to do to achieve your goals?” Understanding the interplay between the roles and responsibilities of systems and people is important to him.

He has led several community-based research projects examining policies governing housing for vulnerable populations, published two books, several articles, book chapter and reports, advised parliament, and presented at many international conferences. Dr. Weissman shares his own story, tied to his research about current issues facing addictions and housing policy in Canada, in the Press, TV, podcasts, and others’ documentary work, and as a lived experience policy advisor. In 2017, he was honoured to contribute to the Indigenous Definition of Homelessness in Canada (Thistle, COH 2017). A collaboration with Canadian scholars on the impact of COVID on front-line workers in the homelessness sector, has resulted in several publications and policy recommendations. He was research lead on the (2018) Safe At Home study of Housing Unit Takeovers – when gangs abuse tenants – in Toronto, has been replicated, and he is currently shaping a proposed similar study for NB.

In 2018, Dr. Weissman became Principal Investigator on a multi-sited study of post-secondary student homelessness across Canada. funded by the Making the Shift Social Innovation Lab, this research demonstrates the concrete needs of post-secondary students facing housing precarity, and offered solutions based on best current practices. This project is the subject of CBC and Canadian Press coverage. Dr. Weissman has recently formed a visual ethnography lab at UNB Saint John (ethnolab.ca under construction) to help students and community partners craft focused and scholarly applied visual studies of social problems. He is currently working on his memoir, Writing From Panic (Rock’s Mills Press), as well as a film on place attachment and recovery, and consulted and is featured in an upcoming Bell documentary on Housing First and recovery (August 2027).

Book

Weissman, E. (2027, forthcoming) Writing From Panic. A memoir. Oakville: Rock’s Mills Press

Book chapters

Weissman, E. (2025). HUTS in Canada: housing predator research in Canadian context. In Bainbridge L; Broad R; Loughery A. (Eds).(2025) Understanding and Preventing 'Cuckooing' Victimisation: County Lines and Beyond. London: Routledge.

Weissman, E. (2024). in Marion and Crowder (Eds.), Visual research: A concise introduction to thinking visually, 2nd Ed: “Chapter 6. Video. New York: Routledge

Weissman, E. (2024). in Marion and Crowder (Eds.), Visual research: A concise introduction to thinking visually 2nd Ed: “Chapter Multimedia. Video.” New York: Routledge

Waegemakers Schiff, J., Weissman, E., Schiff, Rebecca and Alana Jones (2024). Chapter Six. Traumatic stress but not burnout in frontline staff during COVID.” In Schiff, R., Wilkinson, A., Cullingham, S., and Buccieri, K. (Eds.) 2024. Pandemic planning and homelessness: Lessons from COVID-19. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press.

Jones, A. Waegemakers Schiff, J. and Eric Weissman (2024). Chapter Seven. Frontline staff with lived experiences in homelessness and housing precarity. In Schiff, R., Wilkinson, A., Cullingham, S., and Buccieri, K. (Eds.) 2024. Pandemic planning and homelessness: Lessons from COVID-19. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press.

Reports

2025. Weissman, Eric, and The PSSHRN - PSSH In Canada, Final Report the PSSH Research Network. October 2024. (student homelessness network)