Penny Gurstein

Director of the Housing Research Collaborative, University of British Columbia, Canada

Penny Gurstein is the founding Director of the Housing Research Collaborative, a community of housing researchers, providers and policy makers focused on understanding systemic impediments in the housing system and the development of models to address housing unaffordability. She is immediate past Director of the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC. She specializes in the socio-cultural aspects of community planning with particular emphasis on those who are the most marginalized in planning processes. Her research focuses on developing strategies and interventions that encourage diversity, equity and urban sustainability in the planning and design of communities. Her current research is investigating strategies for affordable housing both in Canada and internationally.



Dr. Gurstein is the Principal Investigator of the Balanced Supply of Housing Node of the SSHRC-CMHC Collaborative Housing Research Network, and the Co-Lead of CMHC Housing Supply Challenge’s Housing Assessment Resource Tools (HART) project funded by CMHC’s Housing Supply Challenge initiative.


Recent books include: Planning on the Edge: Vancouver and the Challenges of Reconciliation, Social Justice, and Sustainable Development (co-edited with T. Hutton, 2019, UBC Press); Civil Societies: Shifting Contexts for Democratic Planning and Governance (co-edited with L. Angeles, 2007, U. of Toronto Press); and Wired to the World, Chained to the Home: Telework in Daily Life (2001, UBC Press).


She is the 2016 recipient of the YWCA Women of Distinction Award for Education, Training and Development, and in 2018 was awarded the Faculty of Applied Science Dean's Medal of Distinction. She has been appointed to the Board of Commissioners of BC Housing Management Commission from 2018 to 2023. 

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