Recognition of housing rights could end homelessness: UN

‘10 pct of Haitians get refugee status’

MUMBAI, Nov 23, (RTRS): Canada’s move to recognise housing as a fundamental right in its new national housing strategy marks a historic step towards ending homelessness, a senior United Nations official said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the longawaited housing strategy on Wednesday in response to UN criticism of Canada’s “persistent housing crisis”.

Under the plan, up to 100,000 affordable housing units will be created and some 300,000 low-income households will receive financial assistance towards housing.

“What makes this a truly historic moment is the government’s acknowledgement that housing is a human right and its intention to recognise this through a rightsbased housing strategy as well as in legislation,” Leilani Farha said on Thursday.

“There is little doubt that they could be real leaders in eliminating homelessness,” Farha, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to housing, said in a statement.

Critics said the plan did little to free up more land to stem a growing affordability crisis after a long housing boom priced many poorer Canadians out of buying and rental markets.

With the new housing strategy, the government has committed to halving “chronic homelessness” by 2028. It also promises to focus on the housing needs of vulnerable people, including indigenous communities, older women, and women and children fleeing domestic abuse.

The two new independent bodies that will oversee the plan’s implementation offer affected groups a chance to be heard on issues related to housing, Farha said.

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Canada has granted refugee status to about 10 percent of the 298 Haitian border crossers whose applications have been processed this year, according to government data released on Wednesday.

That could bode ill for the 6,000 Haitians still in the refugee queue who illegally crossed the Canada-US border by foot fearing that US President Donald Trump would revoke their Temporary Protected Status.

And it may discourage more from illegally crossing into Canada after the US government on Monday said it would end protected status for nearly 60,000 Haitians living in the United States in July 2019.

Of the 298 Haitian applications processed so far this year, 68 were abandoned by the asylum seekers, which means they did not turn up for their hearings, the data released from the Immigration and Refugee Board showed. Another 62 withdrew their applications, according to the data from the quasi-judicial body whose tribunals determine refugee claims.

Montreal-based refugee lawyer Eric Taillefer said he thinks the Haitians who already made the border crossing did not understand Canadian laws on granting asylum.

Evidence

“They don’t understand the evidence threshold, they don’t understand, maybe, the definition of a refugee,” he said.

The Canadian government has dispatched parliamentarians to talk to US diaspora communities and dispel myths around Canada’s immigration and refugee systems. Haiti-born politician Emmanuel Dubourg was in New York City this week.

The high rates of abandoned claims could be because asylum seekers had trouble navigating the system and were not aware they needed to show up at a hearing, Taillefer said.

Haitians are among some 17,000 asylum seekers who have walked across the border into Canada so far this year. Border crossers from other countries fared better, with 46 percent of Nigerian claims accepted, and 94 percent of Turkish people and 88 percent of Syrians approved.

The stream of people crossing the border has eased since August, when there were hundreds each day, but Canadian authorities are planning for more people in the winter months.

The federal government is paying a Quebec company C$1.2 million to set up heated trailers to accommodate up to 200 people at a temporary encampment where asylum seekers have been staying while they await processing by the Canada Border Services Agency.