Shaping solutions for the housing crisis

Lien Yeung (MJ’15) is the award-winning multimedia host and producer of CBC Vancouver News Saturdays and Sundays. Since working for CBC Vancouver News, she has covered a wide range of important stories from the 2017 BC wildfires (her coverage earned her an RTDNA award and Webster award nominations), the Amtrak derailment, and the London Bridge attack. She began her career in marketing and communications. After discovering her passion for telling the stories of Metro Vancouver’s diverse communities, she transitioned to public service journalism. She has a Master of Journalism from UBC and a Bachelor of Arts from Simon Fraser University in Criminology and Communications.

Jill Atkey (MA’04) is the CEO of BC Non-Profit Housing Association (BCNPHA), where she led the development of the Canadian Rental Housing Index. Working alongside key partners, she also helped develop the Rental Protection Fund, a new $500 million initiative enabling non-profits to purchase rental buildings and secure their affordability in perpetuity. She also serves as a director with the Rental Protection Fund, the Community Housing Transformation Centre, Boann Social Impact, the Chartered Institute of Housing Canada, and Community Housing Coverage, a wholly owned subsidiary of BCNPHA. She has a Master of Arts in Planning from UBC.

Dr. Thomas Davidoff’s research on public policies related to insurance, housing, mortgages, and retirement finance have been published in leading journals in finance, real estate, and economics, and presented at a variety of academic institutions and international conferences around the world. Prior to joining UBC, Dr. Davidoff worked in real estate development in Brooklyn and taught at the University of California, Berkeley. He has provided advice to public officials on housing and mortgage policy, including the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the Government of BC, Vancouver Mayor’s Housing Advisory Council, and the White House Council of Economic Advisors. He is also the Director of the Centre for Urban Economics and Real Estate at UBC.

Professor Alexandra Flynn’s teaching and research focus on municipal law and governance, administrative law, and property law. She has published extensively on how cities govern and are understood in law. She is the Co-Director of the Housing Research Collaborative, which houses the CMHC–funded Housing Assessment Resource Tools project and the SSHRC–funded Balanced Supply of Housing Node. She also conducts legal research related to the belongings of precariously housed people and encampment litigation. She is a past TEDx speaker and a frequent media commentator.

As Executive Vice President, Real Estate, at Canada Lands Company (CLC), Deana Grinnell (MA’01) leads teams reintegrating former Government of Canada properties into local communities. She has a key role in fostering CLC’s partnerships with First Nations. She draws from her background in award-winning real estate development, community engagement, sustainability, and public sector policy and planning. She is a past president of the Vancouver Chapter of the LAI Society for Land Economics; was a founding member of the BC Community Energy Association; and contributed on the boards of the Planning Institute of BC, the Homebuilders Association of Vancouver, and the BC Municipal Finance Review Committee. She is a proud alum of the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning.