What's On My Mind Right Now: A Systems Check-In & Renewal
By Susan Underhill
With the start of a New Year, and a new life in a new community, I've been reflecting about systems and patterns. I'm sharing these reflections not as an expert with answers, but as a practitioner trying to make sense of a complex moment.
It's kind of how my mind works. I tend to look across issues and ask what's connecting them in a way that comes from long experience. When you've spent years working across policy, community services, and systems change, you start to notice when multiple pressures are converging at once.
That's where I feel we are right now. What's on my mind isn't one issue. It's the way several systems meant to buffer harm, promote stability, and support people through change all seem to be fraying at the same time.
Violence, Safety, and the Cost of Instability
The growth in intimate partner violence and femicide is deeply troubling and it's not happening in isolation.
Across communities, I'm seeing a tightening spiral:
- rising cost of living
- housing insecurity
- overstretched services
- fewer safe exit options
When economic and social buffers erode, risk increases. This isn't ideological; it's structural.
Housing is central to this conversation and is a core determinant of safety. Homelessness is growing and is much more visible. Rural and smaller communities are now grappling with homelessness, shelter saturation, and limited housing options, often without the infrastructure to respond.
In my small town of Picton, homelessness was hidden (e.g., couch surfing, shared and crowded housing). Today, there are encampments which make it harder to look away. That visibility is uncomfortable, but it also creates an opportunity to respond more honestly.
When crisis systems absorb long-term instability, the strain shows up everywhere: staff burnout, longer stays, fewer choices, and poorer outcomes. Violence does not rise in a vacuum. It rises when stability has eroded.
Economic Distance and the Fraying Social Contract
At the same time, the distance between those who are secure and those who are not continues to widen.
Cost of living pressures are shaping real decisions such as where people live, whether they leave unsafe situations, and how long they remain in precarious ones. These pressures ripple outward, affecting workforce sustainability, community cohesion, and trust in institutions.
It’s increasingly difficult to talk about safety or prevention without also talking about affordability and economic precarity. These issues are intertwined, whether policy frameworks fully acknowledge that or not.
Who Bears the Weight and Why Equity Still Matters
Across all of these issues (i.e., violence, housing instability, and economic precarity) one pattern is consistent. The people most affected are rarely distributed evenly. They are more likely to be women, Indigenous people, racialized communities, newcomers, people with disabilities, 2SLGBTQ+ individuals, older adults, and people living on low incomes and many often at the intersection of several of these identities.
This reflects how power, access, and protection are distributed across our systems.
When housing becomes scarce, services are cut, or policy capacity erodes, the impacts land hardest on those with the fewest buffers and the least room to absorb disruption. That’s true whether we’re talking about leaving a violent relationship, navigating homelessness in a rural community, or relying on public systems under strain.
It’s in this context that conversations about equity, diversity, and inclusion need to be understood.
The EDI Backlash and What it Misses
The current backlash against equity, diversity, and inclusion feels loud, but it misses the point.
Equity work was never about ideology or branding. It emerged from evidence. It emerged from repeatedly seeing who falls through the cracks when systems are designed around narrow assumptions about who they serve.
EDI was never meant to be a standalone initiative. It's a lens that helps organizations understand who is most affected by their choices, and how to design systems that don't deepen harm by default.
That need hasn't disappeared. If anything, it's becoming clearer.
What I'm Holding Onto ... Renewal
Despite all of this, I'm not pessimistic. I see renewal.
I believe deeply in thoughtful, evidence-informed work. I believe in organizations that ask hard questions, boards willing to sit with discomfort, and leaders who understand that complexity doesn't absolve responsibility — it demands better judgment.
What keeps me grounded are the people doing this work with care, often under extraordinary pressure, and the moments when systems do adapt, when conversations shift, partnerships deepen, or new ways forward begin to take shape.
This moment calls for more clarity. More willingness to name what's happening, to understand connections across systems, and to make thoughtful decisions even when certainty is out of reach. I believe that out of all of these challenges, we will track towards equity and renewal. That's the work I remain committed to.