Featured Researcher: John Graham

John Graham, PhD RSW

Principal Investigator, KHRC

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

In the 1980s I worked in human services with street involved individuals with the Anglican Church, and then with ex-convicts with the John Howard Society. After graduating with an MSW, I was a psychiatric social worker at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry (now CAMH) in the early 1990s. I completed a PhD at the University of Toronto, and am now in my 28^th year as a full time academic. Formerly Director of the School of Social Work at UBC, I have held administrative posts at other universities. I have led the Kelowna Homelessness Research Collaborative since its inception, and am pleased to build on work I’ve done on homelessness research when I was at Calgary during the late 1990s prior to my 2014 departure.

What inspired you to study topics related to homelessness and the broader support sector?

I have worked in the sector as a front-line service provider, and have advised numerous service organizations, policy groups, and governments at all three levels. As a front-line worker, I noticed that broader, structural issues weren’t being adequately attended to. I thought then, as I do now, that there are solutions that need unveiling. Then as now, I believed it is possible to solve the wicked problem of homelessness, and I believe our work will continue to contribute to that goal.

What are some of your active research activities / interests?

My program of research centers on homelessness, and the myriad activities at KHRC (khrc.ok.ubc.ca). Over the next year, I am especially interested in scaling up faith communities’ participation in informal networks of support for community members; and working on a further model of helping that veers away from helper-helped to neighbours getting to know one another in mutual support; here I think those with lived experience in homelessness have a great deal to teach us. I look forward to further national work, building on the funded research we’re currently doing on the impacts of multi-year plans to end homelessness on smaller and mid-sized cities (e.g. Brantford Ontario, Halifax NS, Kelowna BC, Lethbridge Alberta, Sherbrooke Quebec). We have excellent relationships with researchers across the continent, and I foresee the KHRC being an important center of homelessness research for smaller cities within the OECD.

What are some of your goals for your work in this topic area?

Our team has scholars, graduate students, and practitioners in business administration, data science, economics, engineering, medicine, neuroscience, nursing, various social sciences, and social work. We are community engaged, and work with dozens of direct service and policymaking personnel at all levels of government, and in the not-for-profit sector. The solutions to homelessness involve people working together, and universities are important creators of data and ideas that reduce the frequency, intensity, and duration of homelessness in our communities. I would like to see the KHRC continue to work in an interdisciplinary way, across post-secondary and service/policy sectors locally, provincially, nationally and internationally.