FEMINIST APPROACH VITAL TO FIXING HOUSING CRISIS
Without veering into lazy stereotyping, what we call `feminist approaches' tend to be more co-operative and less keen on competition and market-driven approaches.
Some of you celebrated International Women's Day and I'm not here to say you shouldn't.
But I wish we didn't need to. In my ideal world, every individual would be treated with equity and have access to the same basic rights and opportunities as anyone else.
We're not there yet. Nowhere is this more poignantly true than with homelessness. Not only are many women suffering from a dire lack of affordable housing options, but they are often ignored, too.
As Cornerstone Housing for Women in Ottawa director Martine Dore wrote in the Citizen just a few days ago, women who are unhoused are often invisible. “Women and gender-diverse people are more likely than men to couch-surf, trade sex for housing, or live in overcrowded apartments.” Many also stay with abusive partners because they can't afford to live on their own, especially when shelters are full.
Statistics shared by the Women's National Housing and Homelessness Network show that on any given day in Canada, more than 9,000 women and girls experience homelessness, and on average each day nearly 1,000 women and children are turned away from shelters.
In early December, the network launched a feminist housing agenda for Canada and maybe you're wondering why such a thing as a feminist housing agenda exists. I'll tell you why: because, historically, policy decisions that affect — and contribute to — the housing crisis have been taken primarily by men.
No, men aren't bad. Many are downright awesome. But even the best of them can't speak for everyone. We need the views, needs and preoccupations of everyone included in how we design and implement public policy. Some call it equity. I prefer using the expression “the right thing to do.”
Another excellent report released earlier this week by the Task Force for Housing and Climate includes more than 100 detailed recommendations for all three levels of government. Notably, the recommendations draw from policy proposals supported by the Liberal and Conservative parties (at the federal level) and they seek to achieve housing affordability while prioritizing energy efficiency and climate resiliency.
But more than that, what's especially gratifying with the task force is it's diverse, and not just along gender lines. One of the co-chairs is the extraordinary Lisa Raitt, former Conservative cabinet minister under Stephen Harper and tireless advocate for mental health and dementia research.
Without veering into lazy stereotyping, what we call “feminist approaches” tend to be more co-operative and less keen on competition and market-driven approaches. When we apply that to an issue such as housing, we get — in addition to market-driven approaches that see housing as an investment vehicle more than a right — approaches that are not-for-profit and see housing as a right more than a way to build wealth.
The report by the women's network says “what is most needed is an expansion of deeply affordable, non-market housing, as well as an enhanced regulatory framework to protect those renting in the private market.” The report from the task force also suggests measures such as full HST/GST exemption for not-for-profit housing providers.
Last year, yet another report — titled Our City Starts With Home, by University of Ottawa's Dr. Carolyn Whitzman — proposed an urgently needed push to scale up not-for-profit housing on public urban land.
As the feminist housing agenda notes, most of the solutions to the housing crisis currently being advanced are “predominantly influenced by voices from the private market and the private rental sector.” Nobody's saying we need to silence those voices. We simply need to add the others. A model that treats housing as an investment or a financial instrument works fine for some people but not for everyone.
To solve this crisis, we need to have all voices included in how we design and implement solutions. Once we have that, we won't need equity lenses because our vision will take everyone into consideration.