About Me
Welcome! My name is Benjamin Owens and I am a PhD student in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto. As an economic and urban geographer, my current research lies at the juncture between labour geography and youth homelessness prevention, exploring the work experiences of unhoused youth in Toronto and the ways employment precarity and housing instability intersect in broader precarious life arrangements. This work builds on my years as a researcher in the youth homelessness sector, where I played a leadership role in a variety of participatory, community-engaged, and mixed methods projects on housing, harm reduction, and youth homelessness prevention.
In addition to my work with unhoused youth, I conducted research on gender, sexuality, and labour in deindustrializing cities during my MA and as a researcher on the Work and Inclusion Project. My master's thesis, later adapted into an article for Work, Employment, and Society, demonstrated how customer violence can act as a form of labour control, disciplining non-normative gender and sexual expression in low-wage services. Subsequent research in this role considered the effects of work and deindustrialization on mental health, employing both qualitative and quantitative methods.