(The
following article is from
the December 1-31,
2007
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This
article by Cathy
Crowe first appeared in the Toronto Star, Nov. 15, 2007
Homelessness: a national emergency or
disaster - whatever you call it, our government finds money to go to
war but not build affordable housing.
In 1998, the
Toronto Disaster
Relief Committee formed and issued a State of Emergency Declaration,
declaring homelessness a national disaster. The group's signature 1 per
cent logo, a 1 per cent symbol under a roof, was crafted on a
restaurant napkin late one night as a group of us lamented the amount
of suffering we witnessed on a daily basis in our work on the street.
The 1 per
cent campaign was a
distress call - an appeal to the federal, provincial and territorial
governments to simply allocate an additional 1 per cent of their budget
to kick-start a new national, affordable housing program. That's the
amount they used to spend on new affordable housing construction when
the federal program, which had created more than half a million homes
starting in 1973, was eliminated in 1993.
Cities
responded quickly to the
disaster declaration. Toronto voted 53 to 1 that homelessness was a
national disaster. The municipalities of Ottawa-Carleton, Vancouver,
Victoria, Durham Region, Nepean and Peel all passed resolutions that
echoed the same sentiment. The United Nations described the situation
in Canada as a "national housing emergency."
These
criticisms resulted in the
appointment of a federal minister responsible for homelessness and more
than $1 billion allocated to homelessness relief over the next nine
years through a new federal program. Yet, a succession of federal
housing ministers had their hands tied, their government ignoring the
need for a new national housing strategy and the money to go with it.
Instead, the mantra has become polished and corporate, emphasizing
privatization and home ownership, a diminished role for government and
an increased charitable solution, and deeper cuts to social spending.
The results
have been painfully
predictable. Today, our streets are filled with homeless people and our
shelters are overcrowded. The statistics are revolting: 1.8 million
Canadians in core housing need, an estimated 300,000 are homeless in
any given year, 60,000 are youth, 10,000 children. Aboriginal people
have suffered the most, facing housing conditions both on and
off-reserve that include overcrowding, inadequate sanitation, no
potable water and gross levels of homelessness.
Homelessness
is the worst since
the Great Depression. It is now widely accepted that without a fully
funded national housing program there will be persistent mass
homelessness.
In the past,
the chief remedy to
the housing crisis was the creation of a national housing program. It
was developed in response to protests led by World War II veterans who
faced an acute housing shortage and campaigned for their basic human
right to housing.
So, it was
with some relief that
many of us welcomed the words of Miloon Kothari, United Nations Special
Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, in his preliminary
observations at the end of his two-week fact-finding mission to Canada
last month:
"Everywhere
that I visited in
Canada, I met people who are homeless and living in inadequate and
insecure housing conditions. On this mission I heard of hundreds of
people who have died as a direct result of Canada's nationwide housing
crisis. In its most recent periodic review of Canada's compliance with
the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the
United Nations used strong language to label housing and homelessness
and inadequate housing as a `national emergency.'
"Everything
that I witnessed on
this mission confirms the deep and devastating impact of this national
crisis on the lives of women, youth, children and men."
Kothari
added: "The federal
government needs to commit funding and programs to realize a
comprehensive national housing strategy, and to co-ordinate actions
among the provinces and territories to meet Canada's housing rights
obligations. Canada needs to once again embark on a large-scale
building of social housing units across the country."
Nine years
ago, as a somewhat
naive nurse horrified by the trauma around me, I expected the federal
government to act responsibly to the disaster declaration. It didn't.
Today, I see
the travesty as the
most blatant expenditures of federal dollars are diverted from valued
social programs such as housing and child care and instead allocated to
war.
While funds
have not been made
available to launch a new affordable housing program, the federal
government has once again announced a surplus. This time it's $13.8
billion. In addition, the Rideau Institute has reported that the
Department of National Defence estimates that Canada's military
spending will reach $18.2 billion in 2007-8, the highest amount since
World War II.
Housing will
never come while we invest in war. We need a housing strategy, not a
war strategy.
Found at:
http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/articleprint08/08__FUND_HOUSING_NOT_WAR.html