This is the fifth and final instalment of the Halal Housing Lab podcast series, where we’ve been exploring the complexity of affordable housing development, alongside new and innovative solutions to affordably house multigenerational Muslim families in Edmonton, Alberta. The Halal Housing Lab is a collaborative project between our partners at Islamic Family, Another Way, SAS Architecture, Ask for a Better World, and Intelligent Futures, funded by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

Throughout the first four episodes of the podcast series, we’ve talked with many of our lab partners, who are experts in navigating the systems and scales of affordable housing development. One expert voice that has been absent from this conversation, is the voice of Muslims with lived experience in affordable housing developments. In today’s podcast episode, we dive into a great conversation co-produced by our Lab partner Hussain Khan of Islamic Family, in conversation with Howaida Hassan, to better understand the lived experience of affordable housing in the Muslim community. Howaida Hassan is a Director Urban Growth and Open Space with the City of Edmonton, as well as a Board member of Islamic Family. Howaida is interested in the cross-section of city building, urban mobility and equity and how it shapes our cities. A big part of her career and how she thinks about equitable and accessible cityscapes, is through her experiences of living in affordable housing with her family for the first ten years of her life.