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Mark your calendars and plan to attend this important event on July 24:

For information,  please contact:

Emily Paradis, Research Manager, CUCS at Cities Centre, 416-978-1345, e.paradis@utoronto.ca

Raine Liliefeldt, Marketing and Media Coordinator, YWCA Toronto, 416 961 8100 x 326 rliliefeldt@ywcatoronto.org

For a map to YWCA Toronto, 80 Woodlawn E., click here.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission, an independent agency that reports to the provincial Legislature, released a dynamic new report today called “Right at Home” that is both historic and ground-breaking. The report draws powerful links between international housing rights – which have been ratified by the Canadian government – and Ontario’s desperate crisis of housing insecurity and homelessness. Most importantly, it sets out a framework of action starting with a call for a national housing strategy (Canada is one of the few major countries in the world without a national housing strategy), then sets out a series of practical actions aimed at all levels of government, the Ontario government in particular, partners in the development of affordable housing, social housing providers, private-market housing providers, service providers and the Ontario Human Rights Commission itself.

“Housing is an internally-protected right,” notes the OHRC. The international right to adequate housing was first set out in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights 60 years ago (and it was a Canadian, John Humphrey, who played a key role in preparing that document). The human right to adequate housing is set out in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – ratified by Canada – along with dozens of other covenants, treaties and other legal instruments (most of which Canada has also ratified).

So, if housing is a fundamental human right, and governments have accepted that they have an obligation to help to realize that right when they ratify international legal agreements, then why is there widespread and growing housing insecurity and homelessness in Ontario and across Canada?

The problem is the disconnect between housing rights and housing realities – and that’s what the Ontario Human Rights Commission is seeking to bridge. Politicians recognize the right to housing when they sign international documents, but then ignore those rights when they craft domestic policies. The widespread cuts to housing funding, gutting of programs and downloading of housing from federal to provincial and then municipal governments not only helped to trigger widespread housing insecurity, but it is also a fundamental violation of the basic international standards in housing rights. In recent years, a series of United Nations’ decisions have condemned Canada for falling short in its obligations.

The OHRC report is not just a grand statement of values, but includes practical actions that seek to end discrimination in housing, poverty, lack of funding and services and other barriers that prevent hundreds of thousands of Ontario households from realizing their right to an adequate, affordable home.

The Wellesley Institute has been calling for a rights-based approach to housing strategy since the release of our “Blueprint to End Homelessness in Toronto” in 2006. Affordable and adequate housing is not only a practical necessity, but it is one of the most important determinants of health. Poor housing leads directly to poor health and premature death. Recognizing housing as a fundamental human right provides a solid foundation for a local, provincial and national housing strategy that is comprehensive and fully-funded.

Last fall, the Wellesley Institute helped to co-ordinate the civil society portion of the Canadian fact-finding mission of Miloon Kothari, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing. Several hundred people attended a public forum with Mr. Kothari and heard about housing challenges, and housing solutions.

In our community-based research, we work with a variety of groups to help them to tell important stories and propose robust solutions. OHRC Chief Commission Barbara Hall cited “We are Neighbours”, a research study by the Dream Team supported by the Wellesley Institute, in her comments to launch the “Right at Home” report.

In late June, the Wellesley Institute co-sponsored a major forum on inclusionary zoning with the University of Toronto’s Cities Centre. In that forum, planning experts set out the rationale for a set of municipal planning rules that would insure that low, moderate and middle-income households can find a home in neighbourhoods throughout Toronto.

The OHRC housing rights report comes with a commitment from Chief Commissioner Hall that the commission will meet with provincial politicians and take other steps to have its recommended actions adopted. The OHRC has other on-line resources on housing rights.

Statistics Canada has reported that the cost of shelter is the single biggest expense for Canadian households (based on median expenditure per household), which means that affordable housing is not only top of mind for most people, but should be of more importance to politicians.

Don Mount Court is the first public housing project in Toronto to be redeveloped - coming in just ahead of Regent Park, the biggest and oldest public housing neighbourhood in this city (which has started the redevelopment process). Don Mount, in the east end of downtown Toronto, had to be redeveloped because a growing number of the buildings were unfit for human habitation. The official opening for the new Don Mount - now called Rivertowne - was held yesterday.

Toronto Community Housing Company, the city's housing agency, faces the tough job of managing the biggest housing portfolio in the country (the second largest in North America) with precious little support from senior levels of government. TCHC is forced to cannibalize its portfolio by selling-off bits and pieces of its land and housing in order to finance the long over-due redevelopment. If senior levels of government (especially the negligent federal government) paid their fair share, then TCHC would have much more flexibility with the redevelopment plans and could more effectively address the social and economic issues facing its almost 60,000 tenant households. 

A pattern is being followed throughout North America with public housing redevelopments. Typically, they are converted from projects housing mostly low-income households to mixed-income communities. In the United States, the redevelopment almost always leads to fewer subsidized units - a tragic erosion of affordable housing at a time when more affordable homes are urgently needed, not less.

All of this raises a profound question: Are mixed-income communities better than single-income neighbourhoods?

Mixed-income social housing communities have been viewed as a big success, especially after the development of Toronto's St. Lawrence neighbourhood three decades ago.

Public housing projects (large-scale government-owned and government-managed that typically housed low-income households)were built in large numbers in Toronto, Canada and throughout the United States in the first two decades after the second world war. They fell out of favour by the late 1960s and, in Canada, were replaced with a new model of affordable housing when the National Housing Act was amended in 1973 to bring in Canada's highly successful national housing program.

From 1973 to 1993, more than half a million good quality, affordable homes in mixed-income developments were built throughout the country, and they continue provide good homes to millions of Canadians.

On the face of it, mixed-income neighbourhoods are better, and more inclusive, than single-income (low-income) neighbourhoods.

But a deeper question remains: Will the low-income households who now live in Regent Park be better off when they move back into their redeveloped neighbourhood and live next to higher-income households?

Some proponents of mixed-income neighbourhoods argue that the mere proximity of higher-income people living next to lower-income people offers a better role-model and somehow inspires poor people to work harder and get ahead in life. But the roots of poverty are not simply in personal characteristics, but structural issues (such as employment, education and income assistance programs).

Housing experts in North America and Europe are beginning to realize that while mixing incomes are necessary to create better neighbourhoods, income-mixing alone is not sufficient to address the fundamental social and economic issues that create and perpetuate poverty.

Researchers are working with residents in Toronto's Regent Park neighbourhood on a long-term study to test the impact of income-mixing on health and well-being. 

All eyes will be on the Ontario Human Rights Commission on Tuesday morning as it releases the first-ever (for Canada) official report on the human right to adequate housing.

Human rights function as both a moral ideal and as a “deeply pragmatic political tool” at both the international and national levels, to paraphrase Professor Conor Gearty, the Director of the London School of Economics Centre for the Study of Human Rights. In other words, the rights-based approach to housing allows us to set realistic goals and at the same time implement practical and effective solutions.

Last fall, the Wellesley Institute sponsored a community forum on the international right to adequate housing with Miloon Kothari, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, who was on an official fact-finding mission to Canada. OHRC Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall was a guest speaker at that forum, and in her comments she made a strong link between the international right to adequate housing guaranteed in dozens of treaties, covenants and other legal instruments, and the realities of massive and growing housing insecurity in Toronto and throughout Ontario.

The international human right to adequate housing was first recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in December of 1948 (this year is the 60th anniversary of this important and historic document). It was a Canadian, John Humphrey, who played a key role in the development of the universal declaration.

The right to adequate housing is set out in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and a great many other international legal instruments – almost all of which Canada has ratified. The international right to housing has been set out in great detail, but it has never been explicitly incorporated into Canadian domestic law. There are private member’s bills before the national Parliament and the Ontario Legislature to achieve this. In the meantime, legal experts believe that the international right to housing can be “read into” the “right to life” as set out in s7 of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Last summer, in a Canadian first for an official human rights commission, the OHRC held a province-wide consultation on the right to housing. The commission heard plenty of horror stories about how the lack of affordable and safe housing is damaging the health and lives of Ontarians. It also received plenty of practical suggestions to bring Ontario laws, programs and policies – everything from the shelter allowance rate for social assistance recipients to regulations affecting social housing – in line with international standards for housing rights.

The OHRC doesn’t have the power to order the Ontario government to make changes, but it has a powerful role assigned by the Legislature.

The practical debate about how to bring funding and practices in Ontario up to international housing rights standards is long overdue. The release of the OHRC report on Tuesday will provide a major boost for that debate.

Saskatoon, in Canada's Prairies, is the latest city to discover that economic good times can be bad for a great many people. A story on the front page of today's Report on Business in The Globe and Mail notes that the economic boom in that city, and the province of Saskatchewan, is not being shared by low, moderate and even middle-income people.

About 400 tenants in the McNab Park district of Saskatoon face losing their homes as a property developer attempts to cash in on the demand for higher-priced housing.  Next door in the Province of Alberta, the oil-fed economic boom has generated a huge amount of housing insecurity, and massive and growing homelessness. Even Toronto, which has seen a number of years of solid - if not spectacular - economic growth until recently, has experienced the downside of good times as poverty and income inequality has grown.

The current response in Saskatoon, based on a quote from senior city planner Allan Wallace, is to throw up their collective hands in dismay and brace for the economic storm. "We think we've learned from Alberta's experience before us,” Wallace is quoted as saying. “But what we've learned is that it's impossible to keep up. You're basically reacting continuously.”

Wrong - as was clearly demonstrated last Thursday, when the Wellesley Institute and the Cities Centre at the University of Toronto brought together more than 120 municipal planners and other community leaders for our inclusionary zoning forum. The three policy experts that came up from the United States - David Rusk from Washington, DC; Sheila Dillon from Boston; and Adam Gross from Chicago - all agreed that economic good times are exactly the right time to start effective land use planning to make sure that there is room for everyone, not just the dwindling numbers who can afford the skyrocketing market cost of housing.

More details on the forum, and the next steps, will be posted shortly on the Wellesley Institute web site.

A staggering one-in-four Canadian households are in the housing affordability danger zone – paying 30% or more of their income on housing. Even more troubling, the poorest Canadian households – renters – face the worst affordability problems.

New data released today by Statistics Canada confirms that the cost of housing – rental and ownership – has been rising faster than the rate of inflation, and has been rising faster than household incomes

That translates into a nation-wide affordable housing crisis for renters and owners, which the StatsCan numbers confirm has grown worse in the five years leading up to the 2006 Census.

Behind the figures is the terrible reality that millions of Canadians don’t have enough money to pay their rent, or mortgage payments, and also cover other necessities such as growing energy costs, medicine, food, transportation, clothing and other basics.

Renters feel sharpest pain

In most parts of Canada, renters have households incomes that are about half (or less) of the income of owners. The affordability crisis is biting deepest among tenants, with more than 40% of all renters trapped in the affordability squeeze.

This means that the lowest-income Canadians are facing the worst affordability problems.

Growing pain for owners

More Canadian households have moved into ownership in recent years. But the latest StatsCan numbers report that affordability problems are growing faster among owners than renters.

The most recent ownership affordability report from RBC Economics (March 2008) reports: “Nation-wide housing affordability deteriorated in every consecutive quarter throughout 2007 to end up at its most unaffordable level since the housing bubble peaked in 1990.”

So, the ownership market is offering no relief for tenants ensnared in their own affordability woes, and has trapped a number of new owners between rapidly rising costs and stagnant incomes.

Toronto, Ontario, race for bottom

The StatsCan research shows that Ontario has the highest shelter costs in Canada for owners and renters, and the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area has the highest number of households caught in the affordability squeeze.

One-of-every-three Torontonians have been forced into the danger zone.

Decoding the numbers

There has been a near-record amount of new housing (mostly ownership) in most parts of Canada in recent years, but the Statistics Canada report confirms that a growing number of Canadians are literally being priced out of both the ownership and rental markets.

With the U.S. economy already in a massive downward slide triggered by an affordable housing crisis in that country, the latest numbers from Canada show that there increasingly desperate conditions facing households throughout the country.

Before the massive housing cuts and downloading in the 1990s, governments (federal and provincial) realized that the private markets for ownership and rental housing couldn’t meet the housing needs of all Canadians, and they stepped in with strategic affordable housing investments.

The patchwork of funding and programs at the federal level, and in Ontario and Toronto, that has emerged in recent years is badly fraying. The three major national housing and homelessness programs (the federal homelessness strategy, the federal housing rehabilitation program and the federal affordable housing initiative) are all due to expire this year, and the federal government has made no announcements about new housing investments.

The latest Ontario budget calls for a 6% cut in spending at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing at a time when a growing number of Ontarians are facing a crippling affordability crisis in their housing costs (both ownership and rental).

Housing: Smart, strategic investment

In recent years, a growing number of business organizations have noted that affordable housing is one of the most important foundations to a strong and competitive economy. TD Economics reported in 2003:

Housing is a necessity of life. Yet, after ten years of economic expansion, one in five households in Canada is still unable to afford acceptable shelter – a strikingly high number, especially in view of the country’s ranking well atop the United Nations human-development survey. What’s more, the lack of affordable housing is a problem confronting communities right across the nation – from large urban centres to smaller, less-populated areas. As such, it is steadily gaining recognition as one of Canada’s most pressing public-policy issues…”

“We are used to thinking of affordable housing as both a social and a health issue. This is not altogether surprising, given the fact that many social housing tenants receive their main source of income from government transfer payments. As well, in study after study, researchers have shown that a strong correlation exists between neighbourhoods with poor quality housing and lower health outcomes. However, working to find solutions to the problem of affordable housing is also smart economic policy. An inadequate supply of housing can be a major impediment to business investment and growth, and can influence immigrants’ choices of where to locate.”

In the five years since TD Economics wrote those words, the number of Canadian households trapped in the affordability squeeze has jumped from one-in-five to one-in-four.

The Liberal caucus is once again thundering and shaking its collective fist at the Conservative government, as opposition parties are wont to do in our Parliamentary system of government. The release of the Liberal urban report, with a section on housing, earlier today raises two questions: What’s the difference between the Liberal outrage of 1990 and their outrage in 2008, and; what about the Conservatives – are the Harper Conservatives as bad for housing as the Mulroney Conservatives 18 years ago?

First, the Liberals…

Earlier today, the Liberal Urban Communities Caucus released a powerful report condemning the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, and calling for strong action.

Eighteen years ago, almost to the day, the National Liberal Caucus Task Force on Housing released a powerful report that condemned the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, and called for strong action.

Liberal Urban Communities Caucus (May 28, 2008): “Prime Minister Stephen Harper has told Canadian municipal leaders in the clearest terms not to expect any help for any of their problems from the federal government. With a shrug of his shoulders, the Prime Minister has abandoned Canadian cities. We believe this lack of leadership from the current federal government will cause serious harm to the Canadian economy and the lives of all Canadians.”

National Liberal Caucus Task Force on Housing (May 14, 1990): “The federal government has abandoned its responsibilities with regard to housing problems. The housing crisis is growing at an alarming rate and the government sits there and does nothing; it refuses to apply the urgent measures that are required to reverse this deteriorating situation… 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.”

While the two reports strike similar tones even though they are eighteen years apart, the specific recommendations are somewhat different.

The Liberals in opposition in 1990 were a bit more bold in recommending new investments (for instance, in 1990, the Liberals called for the funding of 5,000 new co-op homes annually even as the Conservative government was shutting down the national affordable housing program).

The Liberals in opposition in 2008 don’t make a strong pitch for new investment. Instead, they call for lots more consultation (such as annual meetings between the federal cabinet and municipal leaders) and “steady-as-she-goes” spending (such as “maintain funding for housing” even as the Liberals condemn the Conservatives for not making adequate investments).

Why the dampening down of recommendations, even as the passion remains strong? The Liberals in government from 1993 to 2006 had a great deal of difficulty in meeting the promises that they set out in their 1990 task force report. They failed to restore the slashed investments in affordable housing for which they condemned the Conservative government and they failed to make the new investments (such as the promised 5,000 new co-op homes annually).

In the 1996 federal budget, delivered by then-Finance Minister Paul Martin, the Liberal government announced plans to download most of the federal housing programs to the provinces and territories, which left Canada as the only major country in the world without a national housing strategy. In 1998, the Liberal government “commercialized” Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation – the federal government’s national housing agency – with radical changes to the National Housing Act.

After the mayors of Canada’s biggest cities declared homelessness a “national disaster” in 1998, the Liberals announced a series of bits and pieces – some money for homelessness here, some money for housing rehabilitation there.

Finally, in 2001, the feds signed the Affordable Housing Framework Agreement with the provinces and territories. Under this deal, as it evolved, the federal Liberal government agreed to put $1 billion over five years into new affordable homes and the provinces and territories were supposed to match that funding for a total of $2 billion nation-wide. Not enough, but a very good start.

Unfortunately, the 2001 agreement was so clumsy that in large parts of the country (including Ontario and much of Atlantic Canada and parts of the west) very little new housing was built.

The Wellesley Institute’s National Housing Report Card of 2008 charts the dollars that did, and all too often, didn’t flow under that agreement.

Now, comparing the Conservatives of 1990 with those of today…

The Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, elected in 1984, slashed national affordable housing spending – cutting almost $2 billion in housing dollars during its ten years in office. In 1993, the Conservative government (then under Prime Minister Kim Campbell) delivered the final blow by cancelling all new funding for affordable housing. To be blunt, they pretty much stripped the cupboard bare, leaving only funding for projects that had already been built.

The Conservative government of Stephen Harper, elected in 2006, announced that it would allocate $1.4 billion in affordable housing dollars authorized by Parliament in 2005 (a good move by the government, but a bit of a surprise since the Conservatives, in opposition at the time, had voted in 2005 against the housing spending). Late in 2006, the Conservatives announced that they would extend (but not expand) federal homelessness and housing repair programs for two years.

All three pots of money are due to expire this year, so if the Conservatives don’t renew, extend and enhance the three programs, then hundreds of street-level services for homeless people in 61 communities across Canada will skid to a halt, much-needed transitional and affordable housing won’t get built and rundown housing won’t be restored.

National and local housing groups, municipalities, Aboriginal groups, business organizations, provinces and territories, faith communities and many others have all been calling for housing action.

For Parliamentary observers, these are interesting times. The New Democratic Party and the Parti Quebecois have been long-time and consistent advocates for increased investment and a new national housing strategy. Now, the Liberal Party has added its voice. Three of the four political parties in the Commons – a strong majority – are calling for housing action.

All eyes are on the government of Stephen Harper.

The Ontario government launched its public consultation on its proposed Poverty Reduction Strategy with a few bumps this week. Closed-door, invitation-only meetings are not the best way to engage the people of Ontario, including those who have a direct experience of poverty.

There is real expertise and a great deal of wisdom from the "ground up" about practical solutions to poverty in Ontario - that's been the experience of the Wellesley Institute over the past 10 years as we have been the leader in funding community-based research. And that was the first message that we delivered to Ontario Minister Deb Matthews, who is chairing the Cabinet Committee on Poverty Reduction, during a four-hour session in Ottawa that included representatives from across the province.

Poverty is fundamentally about a lack of income, but there are important dimensions to poverty, including the lack of affordable housing. So, we advised the Minister that there are both important strategic indicators of growing housing need in Ontario (such as Core Housing Need), a reliable set of targets (from the Ontario government's own Provincial Policy Statement 2005), practical and effetive strategies to get us from here to there, and important and tangible ways to measure progress.

Stay tuned as we work with others, including our partners in the 25-in-5 Poverty Reduction Network , to put much more detail on the emerging framework to make a real and substantial reduction in poverty in Ontario.

Toronto City Council's powerful Executive Committee has unanimously adopted a detailed panhandling strategy that bucks the terrible trend throughout North America to criminalize activities associated with homelessness, housing insecurity and poverty. The plan recognizes that there are socio-economic and health issues that drive people to beg for change on the city's streets and, therefore, the best response is not to arrest and ticket panhandlers, but to ensure that they have access to housing, supports and income.

It was particularly heartening to see representatives from Toronto's business, tourism and entertainment all stand in support of this plan - along with the Wellesley Institute. Even Toronto Police Services spoke against criminalizing panhandling and in favour of the approach that tackles the fundamental concerns. Just one year ago, many business groups and others were clamouring for a police-led crackdown on panhandling.

The TO plan, which still needs the approval of City Council later this month, calls for a "housing first" approach to dealing with panhandling. It recognizes that growing poverty and housing insecurity are driving most people to beg on the streets, and that a significant number also suffer from physical and mental health concerns, including substance use. But instead of condemning the poor for being poor, the Toronto plan commits about $5 million to help panhandlers find affordable homes, an adequate income and the supports that they need.

The Wellesley Institute, in our submission to the committee, noted that the Statistics Canada data released last Thursday confirms the dire trend in growing income inequality in Toronto. We also pointed out that many cities - including New York City - have tried to criminalize activities associated with homelessness (including panhandling), only to find that this costs more and doesn't actually reduce the number of homeless people. And we called on the city to re-double its efforts to ensure that there is adequate housing and services for those who need it.

We've noted in our municipal budget submission that Toronto needs to ramp up its spending on housing and services, needs to re-double its efforts to convince senior levels of government to renew critical investments in housing and other social infrastructure and, until a comprehensive housing and anti-poverty strategy is adopted and funded by senior levels of government, needs to ensure that the city's emergency relief system - including homeless shelters - are properly funded.

One key factor that swayed many councillors was a simple message: The cost of doing nothing far outweights the cost of an effective and practical solution. That's the core message from the Wellesley Institute's Blueprint to End Homelessness, which was released in 2006, and city councillors and city officials quoted our Blueprint in support of sensible and humane plan to address the real needs of panhandlers.

The City of Toronto is building a 10-year housing strategy called Housing Opportunities Toronto. The city's plan was launched one year after the Wellesley Institute released our Blueprint to End Homelessness in Toronto, which includes both the basic 10-year plan plus a much-more-detailed framework document with lots of background material. We've prepared a number of backgrounders on the HOT proposal, including recommendations to Toronto's 2008 budget process to finance the housing plan.

The City of Toronto has announced a series of public meetings to hear recommendations about the HOT plan. These include:

Wednesday, May 14 – Scarborough Civic Centre, 6:30 to 9 p.m.
Wednesday, May 28 – North York Civic Centre, 6:30 to 9 p.m.
Wednesday, June 4 – Etobicoke Civic Centre, 6:30 to 9 p.m.
Monday, June 16 – Affordable Housing Committee                       
Deputations – 1:30 p.m., City Hall, Committee Room 2