Advancing housing rights legal frameworks
About our law reform work
Canada has long experienced a housing and homelessness crisis that has many intersecting causes. One of them is a lack of legal protections for renters. Everyone in Canada has a right to housing guaranteed under international law, but there are very few ways to enforce that right in the Canadian legal system. This lack of legal protections means that the right to housing is practically unavailable to many renters in Canada.
The Canadian Centre for Housing Rights advocates for Canadian law to evolve to recognize housing as a legally enforceable right.Our law reform team advances rights-based reforms to provincial and federal housing laws, by a variety of means, including:
- Policy advocacy to encourage provincial and federal legislators to enact legal protections for housing rights.
- Supporting advocates who represent renters in legal proceedings across Canada.
- Appearing as an intervenor in legal proceedings to encourage the courts to recognize housing rights.
- Carrying out targeted, strategic litigation to change the law through precedent-setting legal cases.
- Researching and analysing the human right to housing and the extent of its implementation in Canada.
