Michael Shapcott
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 (though he decided not to go before the bar,) 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. His detractors vilified him for helping compromise the city's bid for the 1996 Olympic Games.
Michael Shapcott got he hands on legal experience in the mid-80's as a legal student at Parkdale Community Legal Services under the supervision of Community Legal Worker Bart Poesiat.
In 1989 along with Bart Poesiat and future Toronto mayor Barbara Hall they created the Rupert Pilot Project to fund affordable housing initiatives which received substantial funding in the early 1990's from Bob Rae's NDP Ontario government.
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.
Michael was the founder of the Toronto Environmental Alliance and continues to be a board member.
Currently, he is the senior fellow in residence for public policy at the Wellesley Institute (WI). WI 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 Executive Director 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 and has worked on such newspapers as the Northbay Nugget and the Calgary Herald.
Shapcott is a passionate amateur accordion player and co-host of a monthly gathering of Toronto accordionists.
Shapcott is actively involved in the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid and is regularly on television and in the media. In spring 2008 he appeared on the Michael Coren show and made a great argument the Palestine/Israel problem could easily be solved with a secular one-state solution.
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, increasing the NDP vote to its highest level ever in the riding.
Shapcott says he has withdrawn from politics.
