How are unhoused or precariously housed community members protecting each other during climate-related emergencies? And how can these community-led interventions inform municipal climate plans, which often overlook the barriers faced by people living in unsafe housing, with disabilities, on low incomes, and in other marginalizing circumstances? 

These are the questions being examined by the Grassroots Climate Resiliency Project, a new initiative co-led by the Social Development Centre Waterloo Region (SDCWR) and Wilfried Laurier's Viessmann Centre for Engagement and Research in Sustainability (VERiS). The project is generously funded by Gore Mutual Insurance's Climate and Equity Lab, a social innovation lab that seeks to address the disproportionate climate impacts experienced by vulnerable communities, including those found to be "uninsurable" by conventional insurance standards. 

Project Background

Marginalized communities have long identified that government climate plans do not account for the vulnerabilities they face. The input of vulnerable community members is often missed during community consultations, and seldom reflected in municipal climate strategies or in the way resources are allocated for climate-related interventions. This has created significant gaps in governments' preparedness to respond when climate-related events endanger those who are most at risk within our communities: seniors, people living with disabilities, and all those who are forced into unsafe housing by the high cost of living. 

In the absence of equitable planning and adequate protections from governments and other institutions, grassroots responses play a critical role in keeping marginalized communities safe. This has always been the case, and is equally true during climate-related emergencies. The Grassroots Climate Resiliency Project provides an opportunity to discover and document these grassroots responses, in an effort to encourage municipalities to first recognize the innovations inherent in community-led actions, and then help scale them. 

Timeline of SDCWR's Involvement

2023

• SDCWR participates in community-based workshops held by Gore Mutual Insurance's Climate and Equity Lab to help define the problem the lab seeks to address: the disproportionate impacts of climate change on marginalized communities. 

2024

• SDCWR receives funding from Gore Mutual Foundation to launch the Grassroots Climate Resiliency Project. The project will be a two-year collaboration with Wilfried Laurier's Viessmann Centre for Engagement and Research in Sustainability (VERiS), with lived experts from SDCWR's Lived Expertise Roster taking the lead in community engagement with local grassroots groups.
• Funding from Gore Mutual Foundation ensures all lived experts guiding the project are compensated for their time and expertise. 

2025

• Through relationship building and information interviews, SDC's lived experts gather first-hand insights into community-led actions. This knowledge is captured in An Asset Map, which begins to depict the mutual aid, disability justice, and grassroots climate resilience efforts happening across the region. 

2025-2026

• A portion of the Grassroots Climate Resiliency Project's funding will be distributed as seed funding for a select number of grassroots actions. Grassroots organizers will be invited to co-design an equitable and transparent model for allocating this funding, ensuring decisions about resource allocation are made collaboratively and led by the community. 

Project Team

• Leah Connor, Project Coordinator, SDCWR
• Dr. Manuel Riemer, Director, VERiS
• Cori Bonaparte, Lived Expert Grassroots Engagement, SDCWR
• Lynn Intini, Lived Expert Grassroots Engagement, SDCWR
• Emily Escoffery, Project Assistance, Program Evaluation Lead, SDCWR

Project Spotlight

Nov. 17, 2025 - The collaboration between SDCWR and VERiS is one of five projects featured in Gore Mutual Foundations report, "Funding the Common Ground: Investing in Collaboration across the Canadian Charitable Sector"

Nov. 13, 2025 - Leah Connor (Project Coordinator at SDCWR) and Manuel Reimer (Director of VERiS at Wilfrid Laurier University) participate in an Interview with the Social Economy Through Social Inclusion (SETSI) Community Coalition

The Grassroots Climate Resiliency Project is generously funded by: