Title: Living in the Public Realm
Supervisory Committee: Dr. Carmela Cucuzzella, Dr. Janis Timm-bottos, Dr. Cynthia Hammond
INDI Program
Mohammad Abdalreza Zadeh is a passionate researcher and activist designer imagining a world where everyone feels at home in their cities regardless of their gender, race, worldview, and social status. He is a Phd Student at the Individualized Program, Concordia University. His research is about the definition of homelessness and its dimensions in Canada. He has diverse experience in service design, Art Hive facilitation, system mapping, and social housing design.
What does home mean to you? Do you know your neighborhood or your city as your home? If yes, why do we call them homeless? Mohammad brings up these questions to rethink the language around homelessness and the definition of homelessness in Canada. While many academics and practitioners are working on this topic, there is no general agreement. It is more than a theoretical problem. He believes we need a clear understanding of homelessness to address their real needs.
He is working on a theoretical framework that helps NGOs and community centers to raise the collective awareness of home and homelessness on the neighborhood scale to protect the health and well-being of community members. The outcome of his research will be a participatory, actionable, and generative toolkit. It will provide a groundwork to respect the diversity of the homeless population suffering from the housing crisis in Canada.
