Trent Community Research Centre

Precipitation gauges have historically been a valuable asset for surface water monitoring (Tokay et al​, 2010), as well as predicting climatic change and seasonal variation (Grieser, 2015). This study will focus on the performances of three precipitation gauges at the Trent Climate Station in Peterborough, Ontario. The motivation of this project is to evaluate the potential of the new Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (OMNRF) precipitation gauge for its provincial surface water monitoring network. We will evaluate the effectiveness of the new OMNRF gauge by comparing it to the data gathered from Trent's established gauges, the Tipping bucket and GEONOR models. In doing so, we hope to provide insight on whether the new model of gauge is an improvement, equivalent, or less reliable when compared with the established models. We will compare reliability, ease of use, and potential applications in order to help determine the benefits and drawbacks of the new gauge.

This report has two main purposes. The first is to identify which social service providers are involved in finding rental accommodation for clients and determining the challenges which are faced by these organizations as a consequence of landlord's concerns about renting to marginalized individuals. The second is to identify the approaches social service providers use to mitigate these landlord concerns to create best practice recommendations for the Haliburton- Kawartha Lakes-Pine Ridge (HKPR) region. Research was completed using an extensive and thorough literature review, email fact-finding and an online survey. Findings from this research included the identification of organizations within the HKPR region that work in housing and with individuals who are marginalized. The mitigation methods these organizations use such as rent supplements, arranging for repairs, and paying for damaged property to mitigate different landlord concerns were also identified. The main concerns landlords have are non-payment of rent, damaged property, and neighborhood. Innovative programs such as RentSmart Ontario and the critical role these programs play is highlighted in addition to new adaptations on the previously established Housing First ideology with the Tiny Homes program.

The Seasoned Spoon is a vegetarian cooperative café at Trent University that sells prepared food to the Trent community and a variety of services to students, staff and community members. Among these services are their nearly 20 workshops and events offered each academic year. The project was a four-month community-based research project to evaluate the workshops and events that the Seasoned Spoon offered for the 2017-2018 academic year.