Homeless Rights

Not all that long ago, it was against the law to be homeless in Canada. That changed in 1972, when vagrancy laws were repealed. So, imagine a currently homeless...

Like virtually all North American cities, Thunder Bay, Ontario faces the reality of persistent homelessness. Like a smaller number of cities, indigenous people make up a portion of Thunder...

A magical mystery tour is currently being considered by a few American jurisdictions. What percentage of the people experiencing chronic homelessnessChronic homelessness means homelessness lasting for a long time...

Across North America a strange kind of post-COVID vindictiveness towards homeless people seems to have set in. Jurisdictions everywhere have been passing laws to ban all kinds of activities...

Plans to deal with homelessness are not new in the United States, and the one that has just been signed by President Biden is certainly timely.  This post is...

David Park's book "The Fire In the Eye: A Historical Essay On The Nature and Meaning of Light" reviews the history of ideas, debates and thinking about what light...

Finland developed the Housing First model for "curing" homelessness. It recognizes chronic homeless as a disease closely linked to a lack of permanent personal shelter. The model proposes that...

When it comes to homelessness, it seems the reasons that we (the housed) can come up with for clearing tent encampments are practically endless. Some examples: the campers are...

Surely drug addicts/dealers with mental health issues get a satisfying kick out of tent-camp anarchy, making big bucks as they do while getting to party all night For those...

We have no desire to diss the fashion designer who created a live-in homeless bag as a memorial to a friend's father who was homeless and died of exposure....

People who are homeless as a class may well be the most disadvantaged Americans of all. But alas, there are contenders for this status. Equally disadvantaged, if not more...

Update: the Region of Waterloo is pressing on with its plan to open supported tent encampments for people who are homeless. The location has yet to be determined. Read...

In America, if a human right isn't enshrined to the U.S. Constitution, there's a tendency to think it can't possibly exist in any meaningful way. But times change everything....

A recent affordablehousingaction.org post featured a town seemingly hell-bent on destroying its own quality of life — anything to get rid of those drug-crazed, brain-fried homeless folk who just...

The answer to the question posed in the headline above is a qualified and rapidly eroding 'maybe' heading towards the spectre of a probably soon-to-become universal 'no.' Up until a...

Ontario's Superior Court has issued a decision in a case with significant implications for the right to adequate housing. The case involves Nell Toussaint, who has been challenging the...

Two stories about how to 'end' homelessness have emerged from a clever New Jersey township. The first: invite the police, well-known for their expertise in community planning and design, to...

Affordablehousingaction.org is celebrating World Homeless Day, Monday, October 10, 2022 by publishing our 2418th and 2419th posts to help educate people about homelessness, affordable housing and housing rights (as...

Canada's National Housing Advocate has just released a study about the financialization of housing. Financialization of housing is about treating housing as a commodity for profitIt includes the structures...

Here's an opportunity to reflect on what you — and others — might cherish and mourn if your home was swept away by some deliberate, government approved action. Two back-to-back...

2022 marks the halfway point in Canada’s 10 year National Housing Strategy. It’s an occasion for reviewing and renewing the Strategy. Housing is something we all need, but despite being...

Can Canada create 2 million homes that are affordable for the people in greatest need? Carolyn Whitzman says, "sure!" Whitzman is an Expert Advisor to the Housing Assessment Resource Tools...

The UN regularly reviews Canada's performance on human rights issues. Most recently, the rights of the child have been the subject of scrutiny. In the review process, Canada reports...

Proyecto Dignidad is so far only a proposal for how to conduct tent encampment sweeps in San Francisco's Mission District. So you think you've got an illegal camping problem or...

Canada's first Federal Housing Advocate began accepting claims about the right to adequate housing on June 1, 2022. The Advocate’s office confirmed to us that they received nearly 200...

A pox on urban rowdies who keep people awake by partying long past our bedtimes. Statistics show (for the sake of argument anyway) that most twilight/darkness rowdies are males...

Homelessnesses. What is it? By and large, it's what floats upon a city budget, certainly in California, which sees a lion's share of America's . . . whatever homelessness...

Visit 'Ground Zero' in the world's homeless crisis, The City of Los Angeles (LA) in California. It's an encounter that every city with a homelessness problem should consider undertaking...

Do we need more activist explanations that parse such critical details as 'visible' and 'invisible' homelessness, as well as the specific health challenges suffered by the 'chronic' homelessness (not...

Renters Rising and the Center For Popular Democracy have published a vision document for social housing advocates in the United States: Social Housing For All. The document sets the stage...

California is re-examining mental health problems 'solved' half a century ago as a way of dealing with some aspects of chronic homelessness. Some chronically homeless people have such severe mental...

Now that Canada has officially recognized the right to adequate housing in legislation (The National Housing Strategy Act), knowledgeable Canadians are busy helping the country to get off to...

Emergency planning is easy and inexpensive, at least compared to emergency management. History provides valuable support to researchers tasked with developing emergency plans. Add some creative thinkers and there...

Without a local, regional, or national program to develop truly affordable housing, what's to be done about exploding numbers of homeless? The front lines of the homeless crisis is a...

For new arrivals, Nova Scotia offers a friendly sense of superiority not uncommon in the Canadian maritimes. It's a quiet certainty that "you've come to the right place." But...

One thing you can say about local governments – they really can't turn away from the housing struggles of their residents. And to their credit, local governments in Canada have...

Recreational Vehicles (RVs) are a subclass of generalized homeless problems and growing as all homelessness is in North America. An international view of officialdom seems to be that tents are...

Over the last year, California's state capitol, Sacramento has been working hard to balance a responsibility to find or create shelter for the city's homeless. It has been a...

As we all-too-superior Canadians know, Americans do a lot of whining and caterwauling about their rights. But, bottom line, none of that hot air is carved in stone (or...

Watching as police pinch, push and shove a person who is homeless is uncomfortable. Yet as a society, when we call in police and others to clear encampments, we...

In 2021, the City of Sacramento fielded both praise and condemnation surrounding a plan for city-sanctioned 'tent cities.' They would be healthier safer, and less disruptive homeless 'housing' solutions...

How low can you go in criminalizing people who have the misfortune to be homeless? Fresno, California is certainly stretching the limits. Jail them? At least jail has food. And...

Disability rights activists have been pointing out that despite international agreement about accessibility rights, much of the built environment is not accessible. One of those activists, Graham Findlay, sees...

A home that provides warmth, light and cooking heat is in perpetual danger from fires. Two Eastern U.S. social housing (rent geared to income) buildings were the sites of...

As we transition towards at COVID endgame (please go away soon, Omicron!) one consistent story is the impact that COVID's economic pressures are having on homelessness responses. These responses...

New York City, with homelessness mega-problems, is legally required to provide shelter for those homeless within its boundariesSee this article from the Coalition for the Homeless, which is the...

This is a story that is more than 20 years in the making, years in which Toronto City Council could have exercised leadership to protect housing for residents with...

Do governments need to institute anti-discrimination laws to protect the working poor? When it comes to other disadvantaged classes — those suffering from discrimination due to gender, race colour,...

A plan to create a kind of "right to housing" in Sacramento California is a controversial proposal from its current mayor. It has been on local, national, and international...

Here's a sour-hearted Texas situation that could change at any moment. Nobody has yet been arrested for camping in that state! When we first heard the news in May...

Update: On February 4, 2022, Canada announced the appointment of its first Housing Advocate, Marie-Josée Houle. Canada has launched itself on a path to recognize the right to adequate housingCanada's...

Bruce Porter, Executive Director of the Social Rights Advocacy Centre, works to improve the housing situation of people in Canada who live in poor conditions. Some of his work...

What moves people to help people who become homeless? Some are moved by hands-on helping, however unusual it may be. Try, for example: London, Ontario: People Worth Crocheting For Homeless...

Care to get hung up on a philosophical argument? Are "homeless" people who live in recreation vehicles (RVs) and assorted other mobile contraptions actually homeless at all? In this age...

London, Ontario has been evaluating its homelessness response and appears to have been captivated by the possibilities of "small is beautiful." One aspect of this focus is the size...

We Canadians are happy to agree with Americans that we're boring, but we tend to be smug in the knowledge that we are more civilized. Wetaskiwin, Alberta certainly puts...

The following article doesn't describe the first occurrence, and surely not the last, but there appears in some cities to be a modest trend towards actually tackling homeless encampments...

Haligonian? Noun — a common name for residents of Halifax, Nova Scotia. It's a city like many in North America that has heeded the call of NIMBY (Not In...

Vancouver, B.C. is providing unexpected moral guidance for thieves. Don't steal once — steal daily. Then it's apparently not theft! Does this sound a little strange? Nevertheless the City of...

Visible homelessness is undeniably on the increase. Failing truly practical solutions, municipalities and regions are engaging in futile pop-up plow-down pop-up plow-down harassment of homeless tenters, excusing the necessity...

It should be pointed out from the start that ownership of worthless, or near worthless "things" is not an exclusive preserve of the homeless. Anyone who has experienced selling...

The film Field of Dreams featured a famous prediction: "If you build it, they will come," referring to an unlikely baseball stadium in a rural American cornfield. The Mayor of...

The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH) is teaming up with five organizations in a campaign called Vote Housing, which aims to make Canada's housing policy an election issue. Why the...

Given the impending evictions worldwide, the number of people experiencing homelessness may well get far worse before it gets better. Looking on the bright side (a bit of a...

Vancouver, B.C., one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in, might be expected to have a chronic homelessness problem. And it does. Its visible manifestations...

Compassionate responses to growing homelessness crises can be frustrating. The responders may be people experiencing homelessness themselves, or activists, or local government. The recipients of the responses may be...

Dispensation is apparently no longer available in a world where technology is the new religion. In Ontario, Canada very recently, the techno-priesthood was half querulous, half scolding as it lowered...

Bill of Rights? Well, San Diego's mayor is actually calling this by a far more mundane phrase: policy changes. But reading down the list, many or most of which have...

If to no one else in the world, Australia's struggle with the notion of a Human Right To Housing should be of interest to Americans. Alas, the well-housed authors...

"Rather than a fundamental right to be guaranteed for all, housing has increasingly been considered a market to make profits through speculative acquisitions and the so-called financialization of the...

WA? That would NOT be Washington State (USA), but Western Australia State (nation name redundant). That august body was recently in the news for its tone-deaf response to people...

Leilani Farha may no longer be the UN's Special Rapporteur on Housing,To check out the Special Rapporteur's mandate, see the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights: Special...

Many people in Canada have experience of being homeless.It's an experience that is gradually being honoured, rather than vilified. Try: Between A Rock And A Hard Place: Remembering People...

Finland is the only country where the number of people who are homeless is going down. The success has drawn a lot of international attention. Y-Foundation, a housing provider,...

Recruitment for Canada's first Housing Advocate is underway. The deadline for applications is December 31, 2020. The Housing Advocate's position was created as part of Canada's commitment to make housing...

Worldwide, prompt government pandemic action has swept people experiencing homelessness into shelter. The effectiveness of these actions has been greeted with both praise, but also surprise. After years of...

Casual notice of commentary on legal matters leads most Canadians to believe that the slightest American disagreements inevitably result in lawsuits, compared to our more occasional, sober and civilized(?)...

Imagine leaving all your local contacts behind and not having any idea of how to find help in your new community. In England, local councils have a duty to assist...

A group of mothers fleeing domestic violence took the council in Lambeth, England, to court. The issue? The moms’ right to be on a waiting list for social housing...

Two homeless mothers together with children have occupied an empty house in Oakland, California. Currently, there is more housing held empty by investors speculating in Oakland than there are...

A lot of people find emotional security from 'their special baby'. We're talking about the furry kind here, cats and dogs mostly, but not exclusively. They are important enough that...

A widespread misconception about the nature of homelessness needs urgent correction. It is an understandable, and unfortunately highly convenient, misconception. It puts the focus on a small handful of...

In 2011, Terryann Samuels, a mother of four in England, was faced with a difficult decision. She could 'top up' her public rent assistance with £150 of her basic...

Very happy to report that Canadians now do enjoy a human right to adequate housing. The campaign, which affordablehousingaction.org has been faithfully covering, ended when the National Housing Strategy Act received Royal assent.

What happens when a country binds itself with an aspirational constitution and many of the founding fathers are land and housing speculators? One might expect that basic individual freedoms and...

Canada would seem to share an enthusiasm with its more populous neighbour to the south: cramming all kinds of goodies and baddies into omnibus bills. You might think that acknowledging...

Faced with low wages and unaffordable housing, people become homeless. Some have children. School districts find themselves struggling to accommodate students who are homeless. It's a predictable problem, and...

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is considering a profoundly generous and undoubtedly controversial way of fulfilling its mandate to provide education for all children and youth, regardless...

In North America, the bragging rights for "Most Disgustingly Expensive Big City to Live in" are hotly contested. A perennial frontrunner in the competition is Canada's Vancouver, long a...

Canada's national government issued a National Housing Strategy in 2017. The strategy is founded on a commitment to housing as a human right and Canada's obligations as a signatory...

Two UK articles in the Guardian neatly bookend the depths of an affordable crisis that is far more than the national concern of a single country. First, the Guardian quotes Shelter,...

If you build it, they will come. And they did come, more than anyone expected. In a visionary, gutsy move, Portland declared in 2015 that nobody would be turned...

What significance might be attached to a January 2018 discovery that there was a huge increase in the number of Seattle's homeless found living in vehicles? Thanks to a...

A recent U. S. District court decision caused government consternation and dismay at several levels in Orange County California as officials scrambled frantically for weeks to mitigate a crisis...

"Consider the advantages of outdoor life. Settle down for a while in the fresh sea air of San Diego, California. Or stay for a lifetime. Your belongings can be...

Humans are by and large sociable animals. Or, if you prefer, sociable God's creatures. Indeed, religions are both powered and empowered by the social magnet of their communities. They...

How many homeless people spend cold nights on the streets of your community? How many have no shelter to go to? How many sleep rough because they cannot cope...

If you are homeless, and cannot sleep over a heat vent, will you die? The odds are against it unless you are in a country with a frigid winter...

On one side of the argument those who are forced to live a homeless way of life, and feel they have human rights, too. On the other side, disgusted communities...

Emergency Alert! Deep underground, a miner's canary is suffering. The miners are at risk along with the canary! What to do? The answer is obvious. Shoot the canary. Say what? When...