Ontario’s community legal clinics have a long and successful history of effective work with individual clients and on broader law reform / advocacy issues that has helped to create stronger and healthier communities.
Michael Shapcott, the Wellesley Institute’s Director of Housing and Innovation, delivered a keynote presentation to the annual meeting of the Association of Community Legal Clinics of Ontario that set out the challenges and opportunities of taking action in complex and dynamic social policy areas – and the particular issues facing Ontarians who are precariously housed in an increasingly unequal province. He outlined two key strategic actions:
First, community legal clinics are uniquely positioned to identify both the housing and other social issues in their communities and to identify practical strategies for action; and, second, community legal clinics have the expertise and training to adopt rights-based approaches to housing and social issues.