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Episode 21: Dr. Naheed Dosani – Approaching Homelessness from a Place of Empathy
Erin Davis: Welcome to REAL TIME, a podcast for and about REALTORS®. I’m your host, Erin Davis, and it’s great to have you sharing this time with us. We explore everything in this podcast from living green to marketing tips, design, and so much more. On episode 21 of REAL TIME today, we’re joined by Dr. Naheed Dosani to compliment REALTORS Care® Week 2021. Dr. Dosani, a Toronto-based physician and humanitarian, has been making headlines, and more importantly, a real difference while providing palliative care to the homeless and vulnerably housed since 2014. In this episode, we’re going to explore Dr. Dosani’s perspective on the state of homelessness in Canada, the impacts of health and social system inequities. We’re going to talk about PEACH, and it stands for Palliative Education and Care for the Homeless and how Canadians, we, can seek humility and empathy in supporting marginalized people. Dr. Dosani, thank you so much for taking some of your precious time to be with us here today. It means a lot to our members and to me. Thank you for this. Dr. Dosani: Thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate it. Erin: You are amazing. As a physician, you must’ve always wanted to help people, but tell us about your journey in medicine, Doctor, and what drew you to caring for the homeless and vulnerably housed in particular. Dr. Dosani: I’m the son of two refugees who came to Canada in the 1970s from a country called Uganda in Africa. My parents came to Canada as refugees with nothing, fleeing war and persecution. My upbringing was really focused on justice, community wellbeing, and what social change could really inspire. I originally wanted to pursue maybe journalism, maybe law, but then found myself in healthcare and in medicine. It was a turning point for me working as a resident doctor at the University of Toronto in my training. In my first year of residency, actually, where I met a man named Terry who presented to the shelter I was working at, and he presented in pain crisis because he had a widespread head and neck cancer. He had been on the streets for over 15 years. He had a longstanding mental illness, schizophrenia, and he was actually diagnosed with his cancer a year before at a local cancer center. Unfortunately, due to his mental health, he wasn’t able to follow up for appointments. The tumor grew, and so he started to experience pain, and he did what any one of us would do. He went hospital to hospital, ER to ER, walk-in clinic to walk-in clinic, seeking the kind of pain control that anybody in this country should have access to. Terry was denied access to pain medicines. I could read this in the medical notes and the charts. Maybe it was because of stigma. Maybe it was because of bias, but he’s found himself in our care on this day. I remember building a somewhat of a trust with him in the sense that he promised he’d start some pain medicines the next day. I got to the shelter early the next day to work with him, and I couldn’t find him anywhere, and I had found out that he had died. He had overdosed...
read moreEpisode 20: Brad McCannell – The Positive Effects of Universal Design
What’s cost-effective, functional yet invisible, and has the power to improve homeowner safety and strengthen communities? Universal Design: an approach to designing spaces that are inclusive and equitable for all. On Episode 20 of REAL TIME, we speak with Brad McCannell, Vice President of Access and Inclusion at the Rick Hansen Foundation, to explore the personal, societal, and financial value of adopting Universal Design practices in both our homes and shared spaces.
read moreEpisode 19: Chantal Hébert – In Pursuit of Housing: The Impact of Canada’s Federal Election
Canadians have had their say in Canada’s 44th federal election, ushering in a new Liberal minority government. What led to this result and what does it mean for Canadians? On Episode 19 of REAL TIME, we’re joined by one of Canada’s most prolific political journalists and commentators, Chantal Hébert. Join us as we unpack the election’s political implications for Canada’s housing crisis, including the newly-elected government’s housing promises, and how all parties might align to support a more accessible and sustainable housing...
read moreEpisode 18: Heather Bayer – The Evolution of Canadian Vacation Properties
Erin Davis: Welcome to REAL TIME, a podcast for REALTORS® brought to you by CREA, the Canadian Real Estate Association. We are all about sparking conversations with inspiring people about all things Canadian real estate and topics that impact REALTORS®, and really all of us. I’m your host, Erin Davis and our guest for episode 18 of REAL TIME is actually a host in a lot of ways, and you’re going to find our chat fascinating. The appeal of vacation properties skyrocketed during the pandemic as Canadians look to create memories close to home. This scramble for real estate dovetails with another phenomenon, vacation rentals and the sharing economy. With record numbers of people looking to get away close to home, can any property become a vacation property, and what are the pros and cons of investing in one? In episode 18 of REAL TIME, we take a closer look at the trends and opportunities with Heather Bayer. She’s a vacation rental expert, speaker, podcaster, broadcaster, and mentor of short-term rental managers and owners. Heather Bayer is also CEO of one of Ontario’s leading cottage rental agencies. We’re thrilled she could carve out time to be with us on REAL TIME during one of her busiest seasons ever. Thank you, Heather, for joining us. This feels like a virtual vacation and no matter the time of year, I think we can still all use one. I appreciate your time. Heather Bayer: You’re absolutely welcome, Erin. It’s an absolute pleasure to be here. Erin: You’ve been in the vacation rental business for more than 20 years. How did you get into the industry, and what makes you so passionate about it? Tell us your story, Heather. Heather: What it was, it was very much by accident. I’ve been a serial entrepreneur since the 1980s. I love to start-up businesses, but until 1998, I’d had nothing to do with hospitality apart from partaking of it myself. In fact, at that time, back in 1998, I was running a management training company, I had a psychotherapy and hypnotherapy practice and happily hypnotizing people and running my training and it was great. Then the adventure started. My brother was getting married in Midland, Ontario. Of course, as you know, from my accent, you can probably understand, I was in England at the time. He was getting married in Ontario. A week later, my niece was going to be married in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We had a family of 12 Brits and Scots, and we planned this two-week adventure and my brother organized our accommodation in Ontario. It sounded absolutely marvelous when he told us. It was a four-bedroom cottage on a pristine lake, and that’s all he said, and it’s something we never experienced before and we just couldn’t wait for this to happen. What he conveniently forgot to tell us was that it was a water access-only property. Although we were ferried across to this cottage on this very nice motorboat by my future sister-in-law’s stepson, all we had after that was a tin boat with a nine horsepower motor, which was meant to ferry us back and forth to the mainland and the motor kept going wrong and things were happening. He also neglected to mention that the cottage hadn’t been...
read moreEpisode 18: The Evolution of Canadian Vacation Properties
Vacation properties have been around for decades, but their popularity has sky-rocketed over the last few years. What’s driving that trend, and how is it changing the current market? Heather Bayer, co-founder of Vacation Rental Formula, joins us for a deep dive into the dos and don’ts of vacation property investment, how the sharing economy has affected the way vacation rental businesses operate, and the responsibilities all owners have to their guests and neighbours. From helping your clients find their own vacation property, to what the next year may hold, Episode 18 of REAL TIME is a must-listen for the latest trends and...
read moreEpisode 17: How Different Generations are Rocking Canadian Real Estate
We might think we know what characteristics define each generation, even when it comes to real estate. Baby Boomers are downsizing, Millennials can’t afford to break into the market, Gen Z are tech obsessed, and Gen X… who are Gen X again? But are any of these prevailing notions true, or are they just stereotypes? In this special episode of REAL TIME, we talk to four REALTORS® from across the country about their experiences with clients of all ages and how each generation is navigating and redefining the landscape. First, we chat Gen X and Gen Z trends with Davelle Morrison and Austin Titus. Later, we explore what’s hot in real estate for Baby Boomers and Millennials with Rob Marland and Tanya...
read moreEpisode 16: Dr. Winny Shen – Building a Healthy Professional Mindset
From career uncertainty to work-life balance to interpersonal conflict, there’s no shortage of challenges facing today’s professionals. In Episode 16 of REAL TIME, we explore the latest thinking in industrial and organizational psychology to help professionals set themselves up for success. Discover an insightful conversation with Dr. Winny Shen, Associate Professor of Organization Studies at York University, as she shares techniques for REALTORS® – and all professionals – to gain a mental edge by better managing stress, strengthening their work relationships, embracing mentorship opportunities, and...
read moreEpisode 15: Nikki Greenberg – Technology and the Future of Real Estate
Erin Davis: Welcome to REAL TIME, a podcast especially for and about REALTORS® brought to you by the Canadian Real Estate Association. I’m your host, Erin Davis. Today we have a guest who’s going to open the doors and open our minds to the possibilities of PropTech. Think you don’t use it? Think again. Nikki Greenberg is a PropTech entrepreneur, architect and real estate futurist. She joins us now on REAL TIME. Welcome, Nicki, joining us from Sydney, Australia tomorrow. Nikki Greenberg: Thanks so much for having me. Yes, it’s tomorrow from me already with the time differences. Erin: You’re in Sydney, Australia, and we’re in Sydney, British Columbia. We’re just one wrong airline ticket from being together. Thank you so much for joining us. I know this is going to be enlightening. You’re a passionate advocate of property tech. Let’s start by defining it. What is PropTech? Nikki: That’s a great place to start and I am very passionate about PropTech. It really is an emerging field and to some of the listeners, if they haven’t heard about it before or if they’ve only started hearing about it recently, there’s a reason for it because the term actually really came to its own maybe about three, four years ago. There were different versions being thrown around. Is it Cretech, is it Retech, is it PropTech? PropTech is the term that essentially stuck around being short for property technology. Now, there’s a few things that I just want to explain to your listeners just to essentially set the stage because there are concepts that I will be referring to later in just understanding exactly what PropTech is. The thing about PropTech is that it’s really made up of three different verticals. You have real estate, you have technology and you have venture capital and where those communities converge is where you have PropTech. What’s quite interesting about this is that because you have these three different communities, they also come with different languages and different ways of working. That’s one of the challenges, especially for real estate professionals coming into this industry and trying to understand the whole PropTech ecosystem is not necessarily a language or a way of thinking that we’re used to because we’re often used to talking to engineers and real estate agents and other real estate professionals. That’s one of the things that is often a barrier to people initially becoming involved, is that it is quite a different ecosystem. The second thing that I want to just point out is that purists believe that PropTech does actually need to be a technology, which means that it’s something that is a hundred percent pure tech, no hardware, no spaces. It’s not about the physical, it’s about the digital, but for most people within PropTech, there’s an understanding the ecosystem essentially has two sides. There’s the technology itself, pure technology and then there’s another side which is essentially tech enabled real estate. What that means is that it’s real estate that is operated through technology and that it wouldn’t be able to operate in such a way if there wasn’t this new generation of technology that’s come out. Examples of this co-working or co-living because these are actual spaces, but it’s the technology that allows them...
read moreEpisode 14: Sandra Rinomato – A Practical (and Personal) Guide to First-Time Home Buying
Investing in real estate for the first time can be equal parts exciting and intimidating. And for some, it can feel like a distant dream. In episode 14 of REAL TIME, author, mentor, former TV host and Broker/Owner Sandra Rinomato tells us how to turn that dream into a reality. What fears or misconceptions are holding first-time buyers back? What should REALTORS® do differently with new buyers? Sandra shares her advice to help break down the process and get to the root of the first-time buyer’s needs, providing actionable tips along the...
read moreEpisode 13: Tiffany Pratt – Wellness by Design: Creating a Home that Brings Joy
What is the relationship between our homes and our mental and physical well-being? Are there changes we can make to infuse a greater sense of joy into our living spaces? How can we reimagine the things we already have to elevate our homes aesthetically and functionally? In Episode 13 of REAL TIME, designer and TV host Tiffany Pratt talks about connecting more deeply with our homes to improve well-being and live a beautiful life, no matter what ‘beautiful’ means to you. Because in her words – be it through colour, texture or personal items that invigorate our spirit – “our homes should make us feel...
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