VIPIRG publications
In this section you'll find printable PDFs of VIPIRG's research studies and reports, articles and speeches written by VIPIRG staff and members, materials created by VIPIRG's working groups, positions papers, and selected student papers. To order hard copy of any of our publications, email research@vipirg.ca or call (250) 472-4386.
A few recent publications are highlighted below. You can find these and other VIPIRG publications by topic or by date.
VIPIRG occasionally publishes student papers and reports - mostly through our now inactive Research Internship Program. You can view student publications by topic or by date.
Our site includes publications that were not produced by VIPIRG, such as student papers about social/environmental justice, event reports, and reprints of newspaper clippings. We include these for information and interest; inclusion on our site shouldn't be assumed to mean we agree (or disagree) with the content. If you have a question or concern, please contact us.
2009 Publications
The Burnside-Gorge Health Assessment
The Burnside-Gorge Health Assessment project was a collaboration between the Community Council, the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) Public and Population Health Observatory and VIPIRG, with cooperation from the Burnside Family Medical Clinic. The project was made possible due to the financial support provided by the City of Victoria’s Special Projects Grants.
The purpose of the Burnside Gorge Health Assessment (BGHA) was to capture a “snapshot” of the overall health and wellbeing of individuals visiting the Burnside Family Medical Clinic. The assessment was conducted through a survey, which was completed by 499 individuals in the medical clinic over the course of two one-week sessions. Selected results were then compared to the figures from the 2007 Canadian Community Health Survey for the broader area.
The information was gathered in order to develop a deeper understanding of people’s health and well-being in the Burnside Gorge neighbourhood, while serving as baseline data to analyze changes as the community grows. At the heart of the project design was a commitment to disseminate the findings to a range of agencies delivering health and related services in the neighbourhood, in order to enrich their efforts to meet the needs of the diverse populations they serve. The findings were presented to the Burnside Gorge Community Association and circulated to community groups, agencies, service providers and policy-makers.
The Temporary Autonomous Shelter Collective (TASC) is a group of homeless,
unstably housed and housed individuals who are determined to take collective
action on homelessness by ensuring that all residents on Coast Salish can live with
dignity, autonomy and respect. TASC was formed to explore the possibility of
creating user-run communities of temporary shelters, often called "tent cities".
While we were excited about the prospects of facilitating the process of creating a
user-run “tent city” in Victoria, we had to begin by seeing if there was a need and a
desire within our communities. Our first step was to get the opinions of those who
matter most – those who would be interested in living in a community of tents or
small shelters. We decided that the best and most inclusive way to hear what
people had to say would be to informally interview members of the street
community with a basic, simple and flexible survey as a guide. The survey was
distributed to people who self-identify as homeless or living in an unstable housing
situation in order to find out if they saw a need for a "tent city", and to see what
shape such a community would take. We will use the results of the survey to help
ensure that the project is guided by the visions, interests and needs of the
communities it will serve.
A team of volunteers and practicum students attended briefing sessions and
distributed the survey within the street community from February until April 2009.
We also tried to reach people who are homeless or unstably housed but who don’t
access downtown services by creating an on-line version of the survey.
Our humble, grassroots survey collected the reflections and opinions of 116 street-involved
individuals. This report summarizes the results of our survey.
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