Rae Bridgman

Housing chronically homeless women: “Inside” a safe haven

Abstract This case study of an innovative pilot project for chronically homeless, mentally ill women in Toronto exposes assumptions that professionals embarking on initiatives to house chronically homeless women may bring to the design of such facilities. The value of in‐depth ethnographic research in charting the effectiveness of initiatives to alleviate chronic homelessness for women and in understanding the barriers that hinder the development of effective programs is highlighted. This article challenges conventional static understandings of the concepts of “private” and “public” and explores issues related to spatial privacy and communality, sense of ownership, ideas about the safe haven being both a home and a hostel, planning for flexibility, accountability to public flinders, and accommodation of individual needs.

A Safe Haven for Chronically Homeless Women

This case study of an innovative pilot project for chronically homeless women in Toronto, Canada, contributes to our knowledge about how homeless women survive life on the streets and about the everyday practices that frontline staff employ in work with such women. The findings further our understanding of the multiple, subtle, and shifting levels of distrust and trust involved in work with chronically homeless mentally ill women.

The playful city: constructing a typology for urban design interventions

ABSTRACT This article explores the intersection of scholarly findings on adult play with ludic urban interventions (those encouraging spontaneous and undirected playfulness). Playful urban design answers our innate need to explore, discover, experiment and even test our mental and physical boundaries. The urban environment as ‘play space’ can offer ample opportunities for nurturing adults’ innate playfulness. Twenty-seven cases of urban ludic interventions (existing and proposed) framed by the academic literature on adult play and the urban environment yielded a rich typology encompassing multiple play types, important design considerations and differing implementation styles. This typology will help urban planners and designers, policymakers, municipal officials, researchers and others appreciate the largely untapped potential for urban environments to act as a play space for all.