Book Description

POLICY BRIEF Three ways the National Housing Strategy can support the right to housing By Noah Zon, Hadley Nelles, and Hannah Aldridge July 2017 POLICY BRIEF Three ways the National Housing Strategy can support the right to housing Over the past year the federal government has been working to develop a national housing strategy which is expected to be finalized in the fall. [...] As we mark the beginning of a new phase of housing policy, the federal government should take this opportunity to build the housing strategy on a foundation of human rights and the principle that all people in Canada have an inherent right to housing that meets their needs. [...] To establish a solid foundation for long-term progress, we recommend that the national housing strategy include: • Updating the National Housing Act to explicitly include the right to housing in the purpose and objectives of the act; • Developing measurement, reporting and accountability processes consistent with human rights approaches; and • Embedding engagement processes in the development and [...] To do so, the government should propose amendments to the National Housing Act to include an explicit recognition of the right to housing. [...] Policy brief: Three ways the National Housing Strategy can support the right to housing 6 By using these measures to develop a minimum standard for social housing units, the creation of effective measures and targets helped to drive improvements impacting hundreds of thousands of social housing units by ensuring they were brought up to standard.10 It is important however to be cautious in the desi.