No Place Like Home - by Jessica Barrett (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From award-winning journalist Jessica Barrett, an honest and urgent look at our housing crisis and lessons from around the world that will make better homes for all Canadians.

After living in Vancouver for her entire adult life, Jessica Barrett packed up her apartment, quit her dream job as a magazine editor, and headed for Calgary in search of an affordable place to call home. In the years since Barrett was priced out of Vancouver, the issue of housing affordability has become a national crisis, fanning the flames of social inequality and setting us up for financial ruin. But our obsession with rising housing prices obscures a more complex and pressing issue: we have lost our reverence for and our understanding of home.

In No Place Like Home, Barrett dives behind the headlines and statistics of Canada's housing crisis to examine how it has eaten away at our psyches by undermining our human needs for belonging, connection, and stability. Through a mix of powerful memoir and rigorous journalism, she delivers an eye-opening portrait of our housing system while scouring the world for examples of how we might do things differently, pulling inspiration from the slum communities of Harare, Zimbabwe, the stately streets of Vienna, Austria, and the Cold-war era apartment blocks of West Berlin. In the process, Barrett forms a framework for solutions and the basis for achievable change. Her biggest discovery? We cannot solve our housing crisis until we first address our crisis of home.

Review Quotes

"A soulful antidote to our housing crisis. A rallying cry that preserves and de-commodifies the very human idea of 'home.' Barrett describes, in elegant prose, why today's conception of shelter as an investor-focused asset is doomed to fail. Then she points the way past toxic real estate and toward real homes and real communities. Vital and fascinating!" --Michael Harris, author of All We Want and The End of Absence

"No Place Like Home is an essential read for anyone who cares about the future of housing. Through sharp reporting and rich storytelling, Jessica Barrett proves that we can fix the abiding crisis of our time. This book gave me hope." --Charles Montgomery, author of Happy City and co-founder of Happy Cities

"In No Place Like Home, Jessica Barrett thoughtfully examines the housing crisis from all angles, putting together a clear playbook for one of the biggest problems we collectively face." --Kyla Scnalon, economist and author of In This Economy?

"No Place Like Home is an incredible feat: an intricately woven examination of the fundamental concept of home that forces the reader to re-examine the question of the housing crisis from an entirely new angle--one filled with humanity and, somehow, hope. Barrett manages a complex task as a writer in these pages, balancing the vulnerabilty of memoir with the rigour of journalistic research: the end result is compelling and urgent, personal and political, worrisome and optimistic." --Christina Myers, author of The List of Last Chances and Halfway Home

About the Author

JESSICA BARRETT is an award-winning journalist and writer. She has reported for the Vancouver Sun, BC Business magazine, CBC, Avenue Calgary magazine, and was Senior Editor of Vancouver magazine. Jessica is a recipient of Postmedia's prestigious Michelle Lang Fellowship as well as the Jack Webster Foundation's City Mic award, among other awards.