A Knapsack Full of Dreams /w Cathy Crowe

Cathy Crowe discusses her book A Knapsack Full of Dreams: Memoirs of a Street Nurse and Canada’s 21st century homelessness crisis.

Over the past three decades, a series of federal governments cut funding for social programs and eliminated our national housing program, leaving hundreds of thousands of people victim to the tsunami of homelessness that was declared a national disaster twenty years ago. No one knows this reality better than Cathy Crowe, who witnessed the explosion of homelessness across Canada while working as a Street Nurse. This fallout was accompanied by great suffering, inhumane shelter conditions, new disease outbreaks, and clusters of homeless deaths. It is a reality that spans across the entire country.

In A Knapsack Full of Dreams, Cathy Crowe details her lifelong commitment as a nurse and social justice activist – particularly her thirty years as a Street Nurse – with passion, grace, and fortitude. Presented through the lens of someone dedicated to the power and beauty of film, A Knapsack Full of Dreams will move you, then inspire you to act.​

Declare Homelessness An Emergency.

For a review of the book, see “A Nightmare of Homelessness,” by John Clarke, 21 August 2019.

Moderated by Paul Pakeman. Introduced by Tim Burns.

Recorded in Toronto, 26 November 2019.