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Susan Scott. All Our Sisters: Stories of Homeless Women in Canada. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2007. 210 pp. Notes. Photographs. $26.95 sc.
Canada is one of the few countries of the Western world without a social housing policy (16) and this book is about the effect such an omission has on some Canadian women. This is a heartbreaking book, not for the lighthearted, and it is not an easy read. It is mostly stories from the lives of women living on the margins of Canadian society. Most importantly, this is a book about the failure of our social services and shelters to meet the needs of the most vulnerable Canadian women; it is an indictment of homeless policies.
Two women, Dore en and Sheila, were Scott's "immediate catalysts" for the book. Knowing these women, Scott maintains, made her think about "what it means to be female and homeless in Canada"(ll). The book is a venue for women to tell their stories. It is based on interviews with "sixty or so" women from Vancouver to as far east as Ottawa, and the work was financed by a grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Women from Quebec and the Maritimes were not included, Scott tells us apologetically, because "the money ran out" in Ottawa (13). Rather than approaching women on the street for interviews, Scott made her connections with women...