Amelia Briggs-Morris B.Sc., B.A.H., M. Litt., J.D.

Bio

Amelia chose to practise housing law for a reason: she wants to see more affordable and social housing actually get built. She advises the municipalities, non-profit providers, and developers who make that happen, on how to acquire, build, fund, and run housing projects, and how to work through the rules that govern them.

Her work begins with the first idea for a project, continues to the day it opens its doors, and extends into the years after residents move in. She helps clients acquire sites, develop new housing projects, negotiate the government funding agreements that pay for them, and apply the legislation behind it all. Amelia’s practice focuses exclusively on housing law, so she understands both how a project gets built and how it runs once people are living in it.

Her clients range from small non-profit housing providers to large private developers, along with municipalities and local housing corporations. They come to her when they are planning a new project, or when they need advice on operational issues that arise in existing projects. What clients value is clear, practical advice they can act on, in an area thick with regulation. Amelia starts with what a client is trying to achieve, sets out the steps and the risks, and helps them move projects forward.

Amelia has worked in the housing sector on three continents. In South Africa, she worked with the Socio-Economic Rights Institute through Rooftops Canada’s Women’s Spaces Project, supporting research and advocacy on the right to housing. In London, England she practiced at a public sector law firm, advising developers, investment funds, and housing associations on housing and regeneration projects. Few lawyers in Ontario bring the same international perspective to housing law, and it informs her work here every day.

Outside her practice, Amelia has been a competitive gymnast, a varsity cheerleader, and a rower at a Scottish university. She has excavated an Etruscan archaeological site in Italy, and recently completed an organic farming internship in Tuscany. In law school she volunteered with a tenants’ rights project, an early sign of where she was headed.