Michael Shapcott
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Michael Shapcott is a Canadian social activist and academic best known for his work on housing and anti-poverty issues in Toronto.
Trained as a lawyer, Shapcott came to public attention in the late 1980s and early 1990s for his work in the "Breads Not Circuses" coalition which argued that the money being spent on Toronto's bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics could be better spent on housing. He was vilified and blamed for costing the city's bid for the Olympic Games. Subsequently, the resulting infrastructure and housing construction boom allowed successful bid-city Atlanta, Georgia to avoid the recession which hit Toronto and most of North America though the Olympic corruption scandal exposed the fact that the International Olympic Committee awarded the 1996 games to Atlanta as a result of bribes and other corrupt practices.
Shapcott is a founding member of the National Housing and Homelessness Network and the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee named after the belief that homelessness and poverty in Toronto has reached disaster levels.
Currently, he is the senior fellow in residence for public policy at Wellesley Central Health (WCHC). WCHC is a non-profit organisation devoted to research and analysis of public policy related to social determinants of urban health, including income distribution, housing and homelessness, and social exclusion.
He was previously co-ordinator of the Community/University Research Partnerships (CURP) program at University of Toronto's Centre for Urban and Community Studies, where he promoted links between academic research and social justice activism.
Prior to that, he was manager of government relations and communications at the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada (Ontario Region). From 1990 to 1993, he co-ordinated the Rupert Pilot Project, a community development project to provide housing and services for 525 rooming house tenants.
Earlier in his adult life, Shapcott worked as a reporter, columnist and editor for several newspapers.
Shapcott entered electoral politics by running as the New Democratic Party's candidate in Toronto Centre in the 2004 federal election placing second to Liberal incumbent Bill Graham.
He made his second attempt in the same riding in the 2006 federal election, again coming a distant second.
