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Canada: a model place to make your home
(if you have one)

Canada is a nation that is, in many respects, the envy of the world. But our history of holding pride of place in the top of the Human Development Index year after year has recently suffered a blow. Canada has begun to slide down the list of desirable places to make your home because the quality of life indicators it is predicated on have declined as a result of recent social policy decisions that have adversely affected women's rights, access to housing and aboriginal and minority rights.

In Canada, women are poorer than they have been in two decades. They are experiencing ongoing cutbacks to social and income support programs designed to ameliorate recognized inequalities in opportunity for employment, childrearing responsibilities and access to higher education. In Ontario, the murder of women by their intimate partners has been on the rise, despite two inquests into the deaths of women with a total of over 200 mostly-unfulfilled policy recommendations focusing on shelter and housing improvements (Statistics Canada, Daily, September 25, 2002, Inquest into the Deaths of Arlene May and Randy Iles, 1998; Inquest into the Deaths of Gillian and Ralph Hadley, 2002). This context both conditions and causes a situation of increased insecurity of tenure and a rise in homelessness among women and their children.

Canada is a signatory to the Habitat Agenda, a document signed by over 100 governments in attendance at the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) held in Istanbul in 1996.

Our commitment at the international level recognizes the important role that women have to play in the attainment of sustainable human settlements (Habitat Agenda, para.15); as well as governments' obligation to enable people to obtain shelter and improved dwellings and neighbourhoods. Further, we have committed ourselves to creating living and working conditions which will foster adequate shelter that is healthy, safe, secure, accessible and affordable and that will allow inhabitants to enjoy freedom from discrimination in housing and legal security of tenure (Ibid, para. 39).

Specific commitments were made by Canada to provide protection from homelessness for vulnerable populations through:

"Promoting shelter and supporting basic services and facilities for education and health for the homeless, indigenous people, women and children who are survivors of family violence, persons with disabilities, older persons, victims of natural and man-made disasters and people belonging to vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, including temporary shelter and basic services for refugees" (Ibid, para 40).

The Habitat Agenda also committed Canada to incorporating a gender perspective in policy, planning, design and management strategies for housing and human settlement (Ibid, paras 46, 78, 119 & 186).

Toronto: the homelessness crisis

While laudable commitments are sincerely agreed to abroad, in this same period of time, the mayors of Canada's ten largest cities have declared homelessness a national disaster. In Toronto alone, approximately 30,000 individuals rely on shelters for the homeless as their basic form of accommodation. At present, no coordinated national plan adequate to the "disaster" is in place.

women: the "hidden" homeless

In Canada, discussion of homelessness and housing tends to ignore women's unique experience, and there has been insufficient analysis of homelessness as a women's issue.

Although recent data suggests that in Toronto as many as one in four people living on the streets are women, "street homelessness" is not representative of most women's experiences (Habitat Debate, September 2002, Vol.8 No.3, "Case Study").

Instead, increased vulnerability to violence and sexual assault or the apprehension of children into government care make living literally on the street close to impossible for the majority of homeless women. Women therefore experience insecurity of tenure in a variety of ways including enduring the constant threat of violence so as to avoid the loss of a roof.

women's homelessness: a matter of inequality

Researchers have linked women's housing insecurity with the disproportionate number of women who make up the numbers of poor in Canada.

Women account for 56% of all Canadians with low incomes. This number rises alarmingly when other intersecting disadvantages are taken into account, such as race, parental status; ability and age.

These conclusions are enforced by existing shelter surveys that suggest recently, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of single women, women with children, and particularly Aboriginal and black women who have had to reply on shelters for "housing".

housing policy: the making of the homeless

From the 1950s onward, the federal government played a leading role in the development of assisted rental housing. In 1993 the federal government froze federal contributions to social housing. These federal cutbacks to spending were followed by significant provincial cutbacks, and in Ontario, a program of "downloading" social programs -including housing-onto a weakened municipal tax base, unable to keep pace with demand for affordable rental accommodation or the compounding shortfall in social housing stock and the need for maintenance of existing stock.

homeless women: a shameful future?

The housing crisis facing women in Canada is particularly shocking in light of Canada's relative wealth and low population in world terms. The Government of Canada persists in policies which erode the social programs that many women rely on to maintain and support their full participation in society and their equal access to the fruits of society in conditions that continue to pay them less, and require them to work more outside paid hours to raise the nation's children and take care of the nation's elderly.

The Women's Housing Advocacy Group invites you to read our platforms addressing the areas in need of the most attention for women's housing needs and homelessness to be solved. We identify the problems, and invite you to be part of the solution.

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about WHAG
Canada: more on the crisis

platform statements:

• sustaining, maintaining a supply of safe housing for women
• income security
• planning and designing housing for women
• support services

download :
WHAG platform statements

policy papers & deputations
No Religious Arbitration Coalition
week without violence
violence against women programs
if you are experiencing violence
women's housing advocacy group (WHAG)

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