The Federal Housing Advocate Marie-Josée Houle stated that the Cabinet needs to tackle “housing injustice” by implementing new laws and policies. .In a report to Parliament, Houle criticized the current programs as a “sorry disappointment.”.“There has been housing injustice in Canada,” Houle wrote in her first Annual Report. .According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the Housing Advocate expressed concern about homeless people living in tents in city parks while being surrounded by wealthy urban areas..“In Vancouver, the disparity was staggering,” wrote Houle. .“The tent encampment where people are living in Crab Park was silhouetted against a luxury cruise ship in the distance. In Montréal, I visited a 24-hour shelter space that serves unhoused and precariously housed people each day, which is located not far from a sparkling new luxury condo building.”.“The Government of Canada must put its money where its mouth is and uphold its human rights obligations, end homelessness and put the human right to adequate housing at the centre of economic and social policy,” wrote Houle. .Houle recommended regulating rent controls federally. .Houle also recommended a national moratorium on evictions, a ban on police clearance of tent cities, a mandate that local authorities “provide encampment residents access to basic services such as clean water, sanitation facilities, electricity and heat” and that cabinet launch a social media campaign “to inform people in Canada about their human right to housing.”.The Advocate said Parliament must “strengthen tax and anti-speculation measures to combat the financialization of housing” but did not elaborate. .Houle is the very first person appointed as a Housing Advocate under the National Housing Strategy Act, which was approved by Parliament in 2019. This role comes with an annual salary of $176,000..The Act enshrined “a right to adequate housing” in federal law. The Parliamentary Budget Office, in a 2019 report Federal Program Spending on Housing Affordability, said the measure “does not create any enforceable individual rights that would give rise to statutory spending.”.“Our advocacy still has a long way to go, particularly in the face of the 2023 federal budget, which completely missed the mark on addressing the most pressing housing crisis this country has ever seen,” wrote Houle. .“There are no new ideas and not nearly enough money announced for housing. The homelessness crisis was not even mentioned. This is simply unacceptable.”.“Thousands of people across the country are having their human rights to adequate housing violated,” said the Annual Report. .“Affordability for those who need it most is being eroded. Housing insecurity is worsening. People are at risk of falling through the growing cracks of the safety net into homelessness.”.“There is a need for a paradigm shift that puts people first, a system that upholds human dignity, a system that builds community solidarity and puts human rights first,” wrote Houle.
