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Former UN official urges Canada to apply `bold creativity' to issue of homelessness
A home should be a human right and governments need to think boldly about how to solve the increasing issue of urban encampments, housing advocate Leilani Farha says.
Farha, an Ottawa lawyer who for six years was the United Nations' special rapporteur on housing, was one of nine speakers Wednesday on a virtual conference on homeless encampments, hosted by the Canadian Urban Institute.
“The way that most people understand living in a homeless encampment is as a degradation of their human rights: lack of access to a toilet, to showers, to food, to a safe place to store your personal belongings, to privacy,” Farha said.
“In fact, encampments are a claim to human rights. When someone pitches a tent in park, that is their expression of their human right to housing.”
Encampments soared across Canada during the COVID -19 pandemic as people fled overcrowded shelters or found themselves unwelcome to couch-surf in friends' homes.
In Victoria, the city counted 25 to 35 people “living rough” in city parks in April 2020, said Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, who also participated in the Zoom conference. A month later, that number had soared to 465.
Ottawa peaked at 226 people living outside last summer and it now has about 180 people living rough, according to Kristen MacDonald, manager of housing and outreach services for the Salvation Army's Booth Centre.
Last fall in Ottawa, police moved in to dismantle an encampment of about 10 people living in GilO-Julien Park in Overbrook, leading to accusations that police were “criminalizing” homelessness. Last month in Toronto, 26 people were arrested when police moved in on an encampment where about two dozen people had been living.
Civic officials cite safety concerns about encampments, such as the risk of fire or COVID-19 outbreaks, but two women on Wednesday's conference who had lived in encampments said they felt safer there than in city hostels or shelters.
“The city says it's unsafe to live in parks,” said Jennifer Jewell, a 51-year-old disabled Toronto woman who spent 15 years on a waiting list for wheelchair-accessible housing. After she lived rough for several months, the city placed Jewell in a room on the 15th floor of a hotel, where she fears she'd be trapped if there was a fire.
“For me, I was safe in the park. In the last 18 months, it was the only place where I didn't feel trauma. It was the only place where I was actually able to heal.”
In Finland, housing has been considered a human right since 2008, said Juha Kaakinen, CEO of Y-Foundation, that country's largest housing non-profit. Housing people in permanent homes, rather than shelters or hostels, has eliminated the issue of people living in tents, he said.
“I can't recall hearing of a homeless encampment in this century,” Kaakinen said.
That kind of bold thinking is needed in Canada, Farha said.
“If you think about Finland as a country, not just on the homelessness file, but in all the ways that make it the top in so many areas, is that they think so creatively to address their problems. I think that's lacking in Canada. I think we need some bold creativity,” she said.
“Governments hear `human right' and they think, `Oh no. It's a thorn in the side,'” she said.
“In fact, thinking of it as a human right is really practical. It means you have to listen to people like Tina (another homeless participant in the conference) and Jennifer. You have to involve them in decisions that affect their lives. It talks about ensuring encampments are safe, or as safe as possible.
“Once you understand people living in tents in parks are human rights holders, then you understand that they're not just recipients of charity and they're not criminals or trespassers or encroachers. They're rights holders, and that means something.”
The entire discussion is available on the Canadian Urban Institute's website.
I was safe in the park. In the last 18 months, it was the only place where I didn't feel trauma.