Where Canada Needs To Go Next On Its Journey To The Right To Adequate Housing

Last month, we shared the work of FRAPRU, a organization made up of 80+ national, regional and local organizations active in the Province of Quebec¹. One of FRAPRU’s roles is reminding politicians about the right to adequate housing². Nor is FRAPRU alone handing out these reminders. Here are a three more examples.

Canada’s Indigenous housing program

When it comes to housing for Canada’s Indigenous people, the federal government should be in the centre of the spotlight. The federal government has in theory made a financial commitment to an indigenous housing strategy. But no money has flowed. Given Canada’s dismal treatment of Indigenous people over the years, this should not come as a surprise. A group of researchers are now taking the federal government to task in an article that speaks about blind spots in the federal government’s strategy for Indigenous Urban and Rural Housing. The article calls for a program that is based in local communities, where a vision of housing becomes the foundation for a healthy community. Read more in Policy Options: Community Self-Determination Can Address The Northern Housing Crisis

Local government and the right to adequate housing

Elizabeth McIsaac, Executive Director of the Maytree Foundation³ writes about the right to adequate housing in Toronto.

Toronto, like Canada, has formally embraced the right to adequate housing. It is one reason the City received a lot of negative media attention when it cleared homeless tent encampments in 2021⁴. McIsaac reports that in 2022, Maytree worked with the City of Toronto to develop a rights based approach to supporting people living in encampments in a City park. She draws on that experience to discuss actions that local governments can follow which incorporate right to adequate housing principles in local decision making. Read more at Maytree: Taking practical action on the human right to housing

Thinking differently about housing in Canada: next steps

This part of the post leads to a report from the National Housing Council, which was created when Canada formally embraced the right of all residents to adequate housing. Canada has followed a policy based approach⁵ to housing programs throughout its history. With the the advent of national right to housing legislation, the nation now needs to shift its thinking and its actions towards a rights based approach. The National Housing Council’s report grows out of a survey and focus groups with hundreds of Canadian residents. The report presents four elements necessary for a rights based approach:

• • Leadership and accountability
  • Understanding and awareness
  • Relationships and collaboration
  • Cultural norms and mindsets

The report also sets out a roadmap and first steps to move forward on the four elements.

The report is clearly intended for a Canadian audience. Readers outside Canada may be interested in the approach that the National Housing Council took to start a national discussion about implementing the right to adequate housing. Read more at the National Housing Council: National Housing Council: Co-Creating the Right to Adequate Housing in Canada

1. FRAPRU aligns with the organization’s name in French: Le Front D’action Populaire En Réaménagement Urbain (The Popular Action Front in Urban Redevelopment)
2. Try: Who’s Standing Up As UN Right To Adequate Housing Falls Flat In Canada?
3. Maytree describes itself as “committed to advancing systemic solutions to poverty and strengthening civic communities. We believe the most enduring way to keep people out of poverty is to reimagine and rebuild our public systems to respect, protect, and fulfill the economic and social rights of every person in Canada.”
4. Try: Toronto Tries To Dignify Kicking Homeless Ass And Taking Names
5. One example of a policy based approach is the construction of public and social housing that was supported with federal spending from the end of the second world war until the program was cancelled in the early 1990. Thereafter, the government embraced a market based housing policy. In each case, the housing policy was a function of managing the country’s economy. Consideration of the residents and their housing needs are secondary.