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Community Data is focusing on housing data over the next two years. Come and listen in on this conversation from our virtual living room as we question some of your colleagues as to how they use housing data. We have invited a group of people passionate about getting and using better data to help us make better decisions so that more people have a place to call home. Community Data will host our guests, David Crenna, Priority Decisions Data Inc., Melissa Kelly, Affordable Housing Research Analyst at Calgary Housing, and Michelle German, Vice President of Policy and Strategy at WoodGreen Community Services and ask for their insight into the landscape of housing data in Canada. Please note that his conversation is about working with housing data and the challenges that currently exist and will not focus on particular data sets. 

Date: Tuesday, January 19, 2021 at 1:30 pm ET

Host: Mary Clarke, Training and Capacity Building Coordinator, Community Data Program

Guests:

  • Melissa Kelly is an Affordable Housing Research Analyst at Calgary Housing. She has a BA in Sociology and a Masters of Research. For the last 13 years she has worked with City of Calgary as a research and policy analyst. 
  • Michelle German is Vice President, Policy and Strategy at WoodGreen Community Services. She has a history of working successfully with broad coalitions of people to advance ideas into action. Some of her projects include the Toronto Youth Food Policy Council, The GTA Housing Action Lab, The National Housing Collaborative, Move the GTHA and Future Cities Canada.
  • David Crenna has a fifty-year long career in housing policy and related urban fields. Co-founder of Priority Decision Data Inc. From 1969 to 1980, David worked at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation  (CMHC) as a researcher, policy analyst, policy director, and Assistant to the President, Corporate Planning. He served as Social Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada from 1981 to 1984. Most recently, he was director of urban policy and research at the Canadian Home Builders Association from 1993 to 2019. David has MA (Toronto), MSc (LSE), and PhD (Western) degrees in political science, political sociology, and urban geography respectively.

Recording: