National Housing Day action in Toronto

The Right to Housing Coalition ends the rally with a march to the offices of the Attorney General of Canada, to show support to the 4 individuals and CERA who are taking the government to court for violating their Charter Rights.

photos of Toronto’s National Housing Day rally

Gathering at Occupy Toronto site for speeches from low-income activists and their allies.

November 22 rally for National Housing Day!

National Housing Day Rally and march
Tuesday, November 22nd
12pm-1:30pm
meet at St. James Park (Occupy Toronto site) at King St. East & Jarvis

march to Attorney General of Canada at 130 King St. West

Tuesday November 22, is National Housing Day. Between 150,000– 300,000 people are homeless in Canada, and millions more are living in inadequate or unaffordable housing. Any yet, Canada is the only major industrialized country without a national housing program.  Aboriginal peoples, racialized communities, people with disabilities, women, seniors and other marginalized groups are disproportionately affected by housing insecurity. On National Housing Day join the Right to Housing Coalition for a rally to demand a national housing strategy and to support the Charter challenge to end homelessness.

The Right to Housing Coalition (R2H) is a group of people facing homelessness, advocates, service providers, and organizations, working together for the right to housing. In May 2010 four individuals and the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation filed a court case against the Ontario and federal governments, asking the court to recognize that, by making policies that cause and perpetuate homelessness, the governments have violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. R2H has provided ongoing support to the legal challenge through research, public forums and other events, and has participated in the national days of action for housing as part of the Red Tent campaign (http://redtents.org )

Endorsed by: Voices from the Street, Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, TCH Tenants Speakers Bureau, Stop the Cuts Network, Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul, Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, Occupy Toronto, FORWARD, the Dream Team, Toronto CAS and the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario. Please contact righttohousingcoalition@gmail.com to endorse the action or for more information.

Friday Feb. 25 Action for Affordable Housing forum in Toronto

Friday, February 25 Community Forum:

Action for Affordable Housing: Moving Housing Rights Forward in our city, our province, our country

10 am – 12pm
O.I.S.E. rm 5280 – 252 Bloor St. West (at St. George subway)
Free, TTC tokens available

What are the challenges that we face as we try to end homelessness and address the severe lack of good quality housing that people can afford?

What are the opportunities to move a ‘right to housing’ agenda forward?

What can we all do to end the housing crisis?

Join Doug King from PIVOT Legal Society in Vancouver, B.C., Sheryl Lindsay from Sistering, Regi David from the Rooming House Tenants Group—Scarborough and Cathy Crowe from the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee to discuss what we
can all do to end the housing crisis!

Organized by the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario.

To RSVP, for more information, or if your group or organization would like to endorse the event please contact Yutaka Dirks: dirksy@lao.on.ca

Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=195412740485404&pending

Linda Chamberlain of the Dream Team talks housing!

You can listen to Linda Chamberlain, a member of the Dream Team who was once homeless, from this audio clip of her speech at the December 10th Housing as a Human Right community forum.  Rabble.ca journalist John Bonner was there to capture the event and produced this podcast:

http://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/john-bonnar-audio-blog/2010/12/psychiatric-survivor-says-supportive-housing-saved-her

 

Dec 10: Housing as a Human Right forum

Dec 10 International Human Rights Day forum:

Housing  as  a  human  right:

Community & legal action to end homelessness

10am – 12pm

155 Dalhousie St. community room

( 5 min walk east of Dundas Subway)

Free

Snacks and TTC tokens provided

On May 26, with the participation of housing advocates, 4 people who have experienced homelessness launched a historic legal challenge against the governments of Canada and Ontario for violating their human rights and the rights of people who are unable to obtain safe, accessible affordable housing.

On October 19, people rallied in cities across Canada in support of Bill C-304, requiring Canada to develop a national housing strategy. The final vote on Bill C-304 is expected soon..

On December 10 participate in International Human Rights Day and hear about how low- income people and their allies are claiming the right to housing. Claim your rights too!

155 Dalhousie Street Community Room is 5 minutes east of Yonge & Dundas, behind the Gas station at Dundas & Church.  To register to attend or to endorse this event email: dirksy@lao.on.ca

Organized by Right to Housing social action committee, Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, the Dream Team, Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, Cities Centre U of T, Voices from the Street.

 

 

LESSONS FROM ECUADOR

Quito, capital of Ecuador

This past winter I went to Ecuador for a vacation.

I saw lots of frigate birds; gained a better understanding of Charles Darwin’s theories; and surprisingly, perhaps, learned a bit about other approaches to the concept of housing as a right.

I say surprising because I’ve worked in housing in Ontario for many years. I can more or less quote the UN Declaration of Human Rights (Article 25) that asserts our right to housing.

I know getting housing accepted as a right here in Canada is an uphill battle as the Charter Challenge demonstrates.

Yet Ecuador (with a population of just over 14 million, a high poverty rate, a GDP per capita at around $7,500 per capita {we are 5 times that level}) has built the right to housing into their constitution.

How?  A referendum in 2007 approved this new constitution setting out basic rights related to housing and habitat under a section called the Rights to Good Living.   Secure and healthy habitat is guaranteed under Article 30.

The constitution writers applied the historic and cultural concept of Sumak Kawsay.

Sumak Kawsay (the right to good living) comes from the Quechan language, the traditional native language of the Andes.  Underlying Quechan culture is the value of community and mutual help (An idea that might seem like a strange one to me-first Norte Americanos.)    The concept finds its way into the constitution where a system of social inclusion and equity is elaborated upon in article 340 and translated below.

Here a National Development Plan is imagined  which will feature decentralized planning; be guided by the principles of universality, equality, equity, progressivity, intercultural, solidarity and non-discrimination, and operate under the criteria of quality, efficiency, effectiveness , transparency, accountability and participation.

Also prominent is the idea of the “right to the city” which stresses full enjoyment of the city and its public spaces, respect for different urban cultures and a balance between urban and rural.

The exercise of the right to the city is based on the democratic management of it, in social and environmental function of property and the city, and the full exercise of citizenship.

Perhaps we can find some sort of inspiration here.

To learn more see:

The Right to a Dignified Dwelling and City in Ecuador – International Alliance of Inhabitants at:

http://www.habitants.org/news/inhabitants_of_americas/the_right_to_a_dignified_dwelling_and_city_in_ecuador/ (language)/eng-GB

I am not a Lawyer…

But I’ve been around the housing field for a while and I remember this line:

“All Canadians have the right to adequate housing.”  

That is what a Liberal Party Task Force headed up by former Prime Minster Paul Martin said in 1990.   

Martin, who left politics in 2008, is in the news again. The new coalition government in the United Kingdom apparently wants to pick the former Finance’s Minister’s brain in order to figure out how to solve their debt/deficit problem.

They’ve got lots of problems in the U.K. that need fixing but I hope when David Cameron’s policy peeps get to talking with Mr Martin they try to connect the dots of deficit reduction strategies and commitments to people’s rights.

Back in 1990 Paul Martin, opposition politician, had said:

The federal government has abandoned its responsibilities with regards to housing problems … The housing crisis is growing at an alarming rate and the government sits there and does nothing … The federal government’s role would be that of a partner working with other levels of government, and private and public housing groups. But leadership must come from one source; and a national vision requires some national direction.

Within 3 years Mr. Martin got his chance to “do something” and provide vision.  He spearheaded an initiative called Getting Government Right. 

But “getting it right” didn’t have to do with the right to housing.  In fact, under Martin’s watch the social housing budget was eliminated and housing responsibilities were downloaded in the rush to balance the books and pay down the debt. Viewed from a purely partisan political perspective the attractive surpluses that followed justified everything.

Last year Ed Broadbent delivered a speech at York University entitled Barbarism Lite: The Political Attack on Social Rights.  The former NDP leader and academic noted that Martin actually said his work on the budget constituted a redefinition of government and boasted that, relative to the size of the economy, program spending was at the lowest level than at any time since 1951.

Nothing has really changed.  Government isn’t about asserting people rights.  The Right to Housing Legal Challenge might be the only way we can establish this basic principle that housing is a right.

Bob Wood is Community Development Coordinator for the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic.

People’s First Radio interviews Tracy Heffernan from ACTO

Tracy Heffernan, from the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, and one of the lawyers involved in the ‘right to housing’ Charter challenge spoke to People’s First Radio last week.  Her interview is available online at:

http://www.columbiancentresociety.com/pfr.php

video footage of Right to Housing press conference!

Check out this video chronicling part of the Right to Housing press conference on 26 May 2010.  The video was produced by Ronzig the Wizard.  Please note that it’s about 8 minutes long.