NDP MP Jenny Kwan calling for working human rights approach to housing. Then, I call out Doug Ford for social murder.

Bill C-398 will be up for debate in Parliament as soon as late October. The Bill requires the National Housing Strategy include measures to identify alternatives to unhoused encampments.

NDP MP Jenny Kwan represents Vancouver East Credit: Facebook

I recently received an email from Vancouver East NDP MP Jenny Kwan explaining how Canadians ended up in this housing crisis with more folks finding themselves unhoused without a hope in hell of re-entering the rental market let alone ever dreaming of owning their own home.

I could re-work MP Kwan’s material into an article, but why change perfection?!

I invite you to read MP Kwan’s brief explanation of how successive federal Conservative and Liberal government policies created a housing market that is hostile to working Canadians – even those with multiple degrees or certifications who, with a nod to Doug Ford, got off their asses to work multiple jobs and still can’t afford current market rents. And, those market rents are a literally a death sentence for every Canadian trying to survive on minimum wage or social assistance.

I also encourage you to sign MP Kwan’s petition: Housing is a Human Right because affordable housing for all Canadians is not, and never should be, a partisan issue nor used as a campaign promise to generate votes during elections.

Check out NDP MP Jenny Kwan’s other initiatives here.

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Housing is a human right. 

No more forced evictions – dignity not decampment! 

Affordable housing for all!

I am writing again to thank you for your past advocacy for real solutions to the housing crisis Canada faces, from coast to coast to coast. 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. 

As you are aware, 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

• 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 (this month) – possibly even sooner!

I am hopeful that you would consider supporting the Bill.

Please 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 end homelessness by ending the forced evictions and instead ensuring everyone has a home! Let’s make ending homelessness Canada’s top political priority.

Thank you for your attention to this very important matter.

In solidarity,

Jenny Kwan

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Next up? Folks living in Ontario need to get rid of Doug Ford who thinks every healthy person waiting for affordable housing should get off their A-S-S and start working like everyone else is.

Someone please tell Doug that Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) was designed for folks who literally cannot work. Ironically, these are some of the hardest working folks I know. Many volunteer and advocate for social justice and human rights within their communities and all of them spend an inordinate amount of time visiting food banks and combing the city for deals on staple goods. They accomplish all of this while being continuously policed by a provincial government that thinks they are being lazy.

Some ODSP recipients are able to work part-time which provides socialization while supplementing their unlivable social assistance income. ODSP recipients can earn up to $1,000 per month, but anything income over that is clawed back at a rate of 75 per cent. Most, but not all, work minimum wage jobs, so at $17.20 per hour they can work 58 hours per month or 14 hours per week before their pay is clawed back.

Gifts of money from family or friends — say, as a birthday present or to celebrate special occasions — must be declared and will be deducted from their less than meager income. That begs an important question, hey, Doug, how much was clawed back from your pay cheque after your daughter got all of those “gifts” from developers at her stag and dough?

But living on OSDP should not mean living in poverty. In Ontario, the Official Poverty Line for a single person in 2022 was estimated to be about $27,343, with the deep income poverty threshold was determined to be $20,508.

I challenge Doug to live on ODSP payments for a year – that’s $1,368 per month, or $16,416 per year, to cover rent and all living expenses. I mean after all, he sat on his ass for 19 weeks this summer with the break extending well into the fall. So, Doug are you up to the challenge buddy? Living the life of Riley while sitting on your butt raking in the big bucks! Kinda what yah do now isn’t it?

And, hey Doug, you could fill some of that free time by creating a list of all of the affordable rental units that you found across the province and sharing it with the public. Please be sure to include photos of each unit — you know, in case of black mold, holes in the walls, broken appliances, no window or closet in the “bedroom,” shower or bed right next to the kitchen.

Doug, we’ll even let you move to Hamilton where rents are less than Toronto with the average one-bedroom renting for over $1,800 a month (May 2024) since you removed rent caps. I guess this would be a good time to mention that for folks trying to survive on ODSP, $582 of the $1,368 monthly payment is dedicated to their shelter allowance. Kinda makes getting first and last months rent deposit a bit difficult, eh?

I know a few amazing filmmakers who would be willing to document your year of living on ODSP, Doug. We could promote it as a reality show and who knows, you could end up on Jimmy Kimmell Live!

Oh yeah! And, in case you pivot to target your vitriol at folks receiving Ontario Works (OW), remember over 60 per cent of O/W recipients are single adults trying to stretch $733 per month — $8,796 annually — to cover all expenses. The shelter allowance for folks trying to survive on OW is $390 of the $733 monthly payment.

And, many of the folks on OW should really be receiving ODSP, but Doug, you changed the rules so they are “living” on OW awaiting approval to move onto ODSP and it’s taking way longer to process each applicant than your site states. Hmmmmm.

That could be the sequel — Doug Ford living the high life on OW.

And, we haven’t even begun to discuss the folks across Ontario — some with multiple degrees and certifications — who got off their asses and are working two and three jobs just to try to make ends meet.

These folks will never be able to cobble together a downpayment for their own home while paying exorbitent uncapped rents, waiting for $10 per day childcare and paying off student debt that has increased exponentially under Doug Ford. And, they can kiss saving for retirement or a vacation goodbye. These hard working folks also need deeply affordable housing that they can own.

But all kidding aside, Doug Ford’s poverty reduction strategy as well as his housing and unhoused crises strategies — which need to focus on so much more than just supply and telling folks to get a job — are social murder.

Social murder occurs when those in power create conditions, through policy or inaction, that will knowingly send folks to their premature graves. Think forcing folks to “live” on OW and ODSP; removing rent caps; criminalizing being unhoused; failing to increase minimum wage to a living wage; cancelling the basic income pilot; building McMansions instead of deeply affordable housing; closing safe consumption sites; privatizing healthcare; under funding all levels of education; granting unlimited gravel mining licences while decreeing, “there is no need to show need;” issuing new 30-year licence and bed expansions to private for-profit long-term residential care facilities where neglect caused deaths; and the list goes on.

And, yes, all of these issues intersect and were put in place by a corporate fascist, authoritarian Ford government based on white supremacist ideals, policies and goals.

Manslaughter, the unintentional killing of a person, can be committed through criminal negligence. If found guilty, that comes with a mandatory sentence of 4 years to life. Murder comes with a minimum life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years. And, that is for each count of murder.

At the very least, Ford and his conservative government are committing social death, the act of treating segments of society as if they are dead or non-existent which is basically a form of eugenics.

Is this really the legacy we want to leave the next seven generations?

In case, readers skipped over the very frank and extremely truthful Frank Domenic Tik Tok linked into the article — get off their A-S-S and start working like everyone else is — I highly recommend having a listen! Then, sharing it widely!

Bravo Frank Dominic, you took the words right out of my mouth!

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Thanks to everyone who read today’s article. With your continued support, a little Nicoll can make a lot of change.