Dear Friends,
Working together, along with housing advocates, the community housing sector, and anti-poverty organizations, we have been able to bring to light the real impact of successive Liberal and Conservative federal governments abdicating responsibility for housing over the last 30 years.
The Conservatives gutted funding for the development of community housing and outright eliminated Canada's co-op housing program in 1992. In 1993, the Liberals completely cut the National Affordable Housing program, which eliminated some 500,000 units of affordable housing that would otherwise have been built.
In addition, under the Harper Conservative government, Canada lost more than 800,000 units of affordable housing to skyrocketing rents, reno-eviction and demo-eviction. The current Conservative leader even called community housing “Soviet-style” housing. Under Trudeau's Liberals, an additional 375,000 have been lost.
Some three decades later, we are living with the consequences of those decisions, and today Canada's community housing stock is the lowest amongst the G7 countries. When people cannot access adequate housing, they are forced to live on the street.
Whether it’s a Liberal or Conservative government in power, it’s clear: they won’t build homes that people can afford unless we mandate it by law.
While the National Housing Strategy Act currently states that the right to adequate housing is a fundamental human right, we know that the reality is that this is not happening in our communities.
But Canada's housing crisis is not just about building more, faster. Canada will not have a working human rights approach to housing until we build housing that people can afford.
Otherwise, encampments for unhoused people found in communities across the country, from Victoria to Vancouver to Winnipeg to Hamilton to Halifax, will only continue to grow.
Decampment and forced evictions are not the answer, either. Moving people from place to place often leads to further destabilization, loss of community and safety for the people who have to live in encampments and worsening of health issues trauma.
This is why, on June 13, 2024, I introduced Bill C-398 in the House of Commons to amend the National Housing Strategy.
This bill aims to amend the National Housing Strategy Act to include the recommendations of the Federal Housing advocate which will:
· prevent the removal of homeless encampments on federal lands;
· mandate that the federal government identify alternatives to encampments in meaningful consultation with the people who live in encampment and with other levels of government;
· ensure that Indigenous peoples are involved and supported in determining and developing housing programs that affect them, and that responses to homeless encampments respect their rights; and
· specify that data on the effectiveness of measures to end homelessness be included in the government’s official progress reports on the National Housing Act Strategy.
This Bill will be up for debate in Parliament as soon as late October – possibly even sooner!
I am hopeful that you would consider supporting the Bill.
If you support this bill – please sign on, and, spread the word with your friends!
If you represent a community organization, please reach out to me at [email protected] to sign up as an official endorser of Bill C-398.
New Democrats have always recognized the importance of housing as a human right and as a fundamental social determinant of health. Let’s work together to make the need to end homelessness – by ending the forced evictions and instead ensuring everyone has a home! – Canada’s top political priority.
Thank you for your attention to this very important matter.
In solidarity,
Jenny Kwan