Margot Young

Wall Associate

Title

Professor

Faculty

Peter A. Allard School of Law

University

UBC

Geographic Location

Canada
Margot Young

Margot Young is Professor in the Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. After studying at the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto, and the University of California, Berkeley, Professor Young began her teaching career at the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria.  In 1992, she moved to the University of British Columbia.

Professor Young teaches in the areas of constitutional and social justice law.  She is faculty advisor for the Social Justice Specialization at the law school and has organized the Law and Society Speakers Series for close to a decade.  Professor Young is in her third term as Chair of the university-wide Faculty Association Status of Women Committee.  She is a research associate with Green College, the Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies, and the Centre for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at UBC.

Professor Young’s research interests focus on equality law and theory, women’s economic equality, urban theory, and local housing politics and rights.  She is also working on the intersections between environmental justice, social justice, feminism, and human rights.  Professor Young was co-editor of the collection Poverty: Rights, Social Citizenship and Legal Activism and was recently co-Principal Investigator of the Housing Justice Project (HousingJustice.ca).

Primary Recipient Awards

Margot Young – Theme Development Workshop – 2012

Co-Principal Investigator Awards

Uchenna Okeja – International Exchanges – 2018
Penny Gurstein – Wall Solutions – 2011

Housing Justice: Public Education, Policy Development and Legal Rights
Principal Investigators: Penny Gurstein, School of Community and Regional Planning; Margot Young, Faculty of Law, UBC
Partner Organizations: Rental Housing Supply Coalition, Pivot Legal Society
Access to affordable, safe, and adequate housing is a hallmark of a just society. This project approaches the issues surrounding housing justice particularly in Vancouver from three distinct but synergistic perspectives: civil society engagement and education; policy development; and social change litigation. The problem we seek to address is how to overcome the barriers to providing affordable rental housing for those of very low income, and for working people of modest incomes. In the public engagement and policy development strands, we are working with community partners to foster heightened civil society engagement with, and advocacy of, housing rights and to leverage policy change at municipal, provincial, and federal levels. Significantly, a variety of communication methods are being used, including public meetings, social media, and expert engagement. The final strand of the project involves building support and providing academic expertise for a legal challenge to move Canadian law in the direction of recognition of a right to adequate housing in keeping with Canada’s international human rights obligations.