The Institute for Contemporary Culture presents An Evening with Cathy Crowe: Homelessness in our City. The event will include an introductory talk by renowned street nurse Cathy Crowe, followed by a screening of Michael Connolly’s film Shelter from the Storm. The film provides a glimpse behind the scenes at the strategizing, debates and actions taken by some committed individuals in Toronto to raise public awareness of the extent of homelessness in our city.

The talk and film will be followed by an informal panel discussion on the subject of homelessness today, featuring Cathy Crowe, Michael Connolly, and Rainer "DRI" Driemeyer, a former resident of Tent City, and currently a poverty activist. The discussion will be moderated by Professor David Hulchanski, Director of Centre for Urban and Community Studies at U of T.

Background on Tent City
Toronto’s Tent City was a shantytown which spontaneously arose -- due to soaring rents, cutbacks and a shelter system bursting at the seams -- on five acres of undeveloped land on the shores of Lake Ontario. Initially occupied by 17 people in 1998, the community eventually grew to over 200 people until they were suddenly evicted in September 2002, ostensibly due to ground contamination.

This program is presented by the Institute for Contemporary Culture at the ROM, in conjunction with the current exhibition, Housepaint, Phase 2: Shelter, the first exhibition on the subject of street art in a major Canadian museum. Drawing attention to issues of poverty and homelessness, this ground-breaking exhibition is a collaboration between ten street artists in memory of the former residents of Tent City. Each artist has painted a colourful canvas house in their personal, exuberant style. In addition, five artists will respond to the previous installations by each creating an original new work in the gallery over the course of the exhibition.