Is Housing a Human Right? With 2026 CBC Massey Lecturer Leilani Farha

Leilani Farha and panelists discuss housing as a human right, from global policy to what it means here in the Fraser Valley.

Housing is often treated as an investment. What would it take to treat it as a human right?

Leilani Farha, 2026 CBC Massey Lecturer and former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, joins a panel of local voices to explore that question. Drawing her advocacy as the Global Director of The Shift, an international human rights organization focused on housing, finance, and climate, Farha will speak to what making housing a human right means and how it might be achieved.

The conversation will also turn closer to home: what realizing the right to housing could look like in Abbotsford and across Canada. Farha will be joined by UFV alum Jesse Wegenast, Executive Director of Sparrow Community Care Society, along with two UFV alumni who bring lived experience and research perspectives to the discussion.

Moderated by Dr. Mark Kersten, Assistant Professor, Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Panelists

LEILANI FARHA is the Global Director of The Shift, an international human rights organization focused on housing, finance, and climate. She was the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing and is a world expert on human rights and housing. She has visited hundreds of people in their homes across six continents—people living in homeless encampments and informal settlements, tenants and homeowners. Leilani is a lawyer, an advocate and a dreamer and works with anyone interested in creating a more just world. She lives in Ottawa, Canada.

JESSE WEGENAST is Executive Director of Sparrow Community Care Society in Abbotsford, BC, where he leads shelter programs and community initiatives supporting people experiencing homelessness, with a particular focus on older adults. For more than fifteen years, he has worked to bridge the divide between marginalized residents and the wider community, bringing their experiences into public conversations about housing, dignity, and belonging. He holds a BA in Geography from the University of the Fraser Valley and received UFV’s Young Distinguished Alumni Award in 2019.