Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lives of Canadian renters have been impacted in unprecedented ways. We have seen a wave of income loss across the country and with that the rise of rental arrears and evictions. While the federal government provided much needed emergency financial assistance to many, for those paying unaffordable rents in cities like Toronto, these financial supports were not enough to make ends meet. In Ontario, with some of the most unaffordable cities to rent a home, people have experienced increased housing precarity and face the risk of eviction because they were unable to pay their rent in full during the pandemic.
Ontario’s government was quick to respond to the pandemic early on by placing a moratorium on residential evictions beginning in March 2020 but lifted it in August 2020, putting many households at risk of eviction while we were still in the middle of the pandemic. Since then, the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) has been operating digitally, by holding virtual hearings many of which are for evictions based on rental arrears. There have been major access to justice and technology issues for many renters at these hearings. Some temporary measures were adopted by the government to delay the carrying out of these evictions via a moratorium on the enforcement of evictions at different times during the pandemic. However, financial rent relief supports have been missing from our governments, leaving many in a precarious situation not knowing if they’ll have a place to call home.
The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and policies to reduce public transmission of the virus, have led to massive income loss throughout Canada, which disproportionately impacted low-income communities. Early on in the pandemic, it was clear that renter households were to face major hurdles in keeping their homes as it was reported that 46% of Canada’s renters did not have enough funds saved to pay the following month’s rent. Ontario was one of the hardest hit during the pandemic and pandemic-related job losses impacted many industries that employed renters working in hospitality, food industry and retail.
Many people living in Canada who faced income losses during the pandemic accessed the Federal Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). However, the maximum $2,000 of CERB support was not enough to help people paying skyrocketing rents in places like Toronto where there has been a rental affordability crisis for over a decade. Some people had to choose between paying the rent in full or keeping food on the table, while others have fallen into debt to keep a roof over their head. The rent arrears levels in Toronto are the highest across Canada, and the threat of mass evictions across the city is alarming. Provincial and municipal supports have also been limited in their impact and reach. In particular, the City of Toronto expanded its eviction prevention programs like the Toronto Rent Bank, by increasing the household income eligibility criteria, freezing all rent bank loan repayments, and providing some grant options instead of loans, all of which are welcomed. However, they remain limited in meeting the demand as well as the increasingly large arrears accrued by many renters.
Another example is the Housing Stabilization Fund (HSF), intended to prevent homelessness by meeting the emergency housing needs of renters receiving income from Ontario Works (OW) or Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). While some enhancements made to the HSF to respond to the pandemic were helpful, like helping with paying for last month’s rent deposit, or expanding supports for moving costs, or allowing access of the annual maximum amount for one additional time, these enhancements were limited in supporting individuals because there are strict eligibility criteria. For example, funds for rental arrears are issued to applicants if their housing costs are within 85% of their total monthly income. Due to the fixed low rates recipients receive from OW and ODSP and the lack of affordable rental housing in the city, many individuals are unable to qualify for HSF.
The limitations of CERB and other governmental programs, coupled with high rents and low vacancy rates for affordable rental homes, have left low to middle income renters in Toronto with inadequate financial supports. It was reported in the 2021 Rental Market Report by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), that the highest share of rent arrears in Canada in 2020 were recorded in Toronto, with 11% of all units reporting arrears in rent payments. Many of those disproportionately impacted were lower paid workers in the hospitality and service sectors, jobs that are highly concentrated in Toronto. The federal and provincial governments provided rent relief to help commercial renters pay their rent, but did not extend support to residential tenants to help them stay in their homes.
The LTB shifted its operations from mostly in-person hearings to digital hearings during the COVID-19 pandemic. This move to a digital hearing process has hindered access to justice for many lower income renters due to technology and accessibility barriers faced by many. Many lower income households have difficulties accessing the internet or a reliable computer, and some do not have access to a telephone, which means that they are unable to attend their online eviction hearings. The Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTO) observed hearings from March to May 2021 and found that renters were present for less than half of the hearings observed, while landlords were present for the majority of those hearings. ACTO also found that a smaller percentage of renters were attending digital hearings compared to when hearings were held in person. This discrepancy was attributed to the lack of access to technology among low-income renters and what ACTO has called a “digital divide” between renters and landlords. In addition, with the new online platform, little has been done by the LTB to accommodate renters living with disabilities, those who face literacy challenges, or those who face language barriers.
During the hearings observed it was found that LTB Board members rarely asked why renters were not present. This is important because board members have been made aware that fewer renters are attending digital hearings than previously attended in-person hearings. ACTO has noted that given this knowledge and the potential risk of eviction for renters if they do not attend their hearings, the LTB board members need to take extra steps to establish why renters are not present at hearings or are disappearing from them midway through, by asking, for example, whether the renters have access to technology, were aware of the hearing or have any language barriers. In the hearings observed by ACTO, it was found that landlords and their representatives more often participated by video, while renters participated by phone. This creates an unfair situation for renters, as landlords benefit from several advantages by participating by video. For example, they are able to see what is happening in the virtual hearing, including evidence shared on the screen, and have an opportunity to make a human connection with the people present or see the social cues that often help people understand contexts and “read the room” better, which renters are unable to do by phone.
ACTO also reported that between March and May 2021, the majority of landlords were represented at their hearings, while few renters received legal advice or were represented. In over two thirds of the hearings observed by ACTO, renters who participated in hearings were not represented or had not benefited from advice from Tenant Duty Counsel (TDC), who are usually at the LTB to provide free legal advice to renters prior to their hearings. Lawyers who work with TDC have reported many difficulties in providing legal advice to renters since the shift to digital hearings. For instance, renters may be reluctant to provide their phone numbers publicly at the hearing in order to receive a phone call by the TDC for legal advice. In the virtual setting there is also less trust and less privacy for renters who may feel uncomfortable sharing details of their situation as they may be calling from a place where they’re unable to speak freely.
It has been troubling to many that Tribunals Ontario plans to switch to a permanent online system, as part of its digital first strategy. Advocates have urged a change from this approach, as the digital first strategy deepens the uneven playing field between landlords and renters. Advocates fear that this system will continue to be unfair and make it easier for the renters to be evicted from their homes without presenting their side of the story.
Ontario must take steps to ensure the Landlord and Tenant Board returns to functioning in a way that can guarantee a fair legal process to renters. We also continue to see a rise in eviction hearings based on the non-payment of rent but there remains insufficient financial supports, both on a provincial and federal level, to assist those who were unable to pay their rent and have fallen into rental arrears. This will leave many households owing debts to their landlords, affecting their ability to access housing in the future. It is clear that more needs to be done to provide financial assistance to those in arrears.
Canada may be facing an unprecedented eviction crisis that amounts to a systemic housing issue. In 2019, Canada passed the National Housing Strategy Act (NHSA) which recognizes the right to adequate housing as a fundamental right under international law and commits to responding to systemic housing issues that limit housing adequacy across the country. The NHSA also requires that mechanisms be created to monitor the implementation of the right to housing and address systemic housing issues. One of these mechanisms is the Federal Housing Advocate, who is an independent human rights expert located within the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The role of the Advocate is to promote and ensure compliance with the federal government’s policy to progressively realize the right to housing over time. Submissions can made to the Federal Housing Advocate on systemic housing issues. Pending the appointment of the Advocate, CERA and the National Right to Housing Network (HRHN) began to utilize this mechanism by making a submission to the federal government on addressing the evictions and arrears crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic. The submission included a proposal for a federally-funded residential tenant support program that would help renters stay housed.
We continue to push for a rent relief program to help lift people out of the crisis they may be facing. Our hope is also that the NHSA mechanisms will be utilized to compel the federal and provincial governments to take important steps to protect renters from evictions and ensure their security of tenure.
Finding and accessing an adequate place to call home in Toronto is unattainable for many but especially for renters in a city where nearly half pay unaffordable rents and 20% live in unsuitable homes.
For years, people with lived experience of housing precarity, along with many housing advocates, have been sounding the alarm on the increasingly unequal access to adequate and affordable housing in Toronto. One of their proposed solutions to reverse these trends is to push governments to approach housing as a fundamental human right. The right to housing is an important framework that can enable people to secure adequate, affordable and accessible housing. Canada committed to the right to housing in its international commitments and in 2019 passed legislation that solidifies this commitment. What this means is that governments in Canada have an obligation to respect, protect, and fulfill the right to housing. However, without concrete plans or strategies in place, there would be no practical avenues to claim the right to housing.
Fortunately, two levels of governments have developed housing policies that commit to advance the right to housing. Federally, this obligation has been cemented under the National Housing Strategy Act (NHSA), and the City of Toronto is the first municipality in Canada that has committed to a rights-based approach in its ten-year housing strategy, the HousingTO 2020-2030 Action Plan.
These policy decisions and policy tools are historic achievements in and of themselves. Here we explore how they can be used to address systemic barriers and how communities can claim the right to housing.
Under international human rights law, the ‘right to housing’ is recognized as the right of every person to a safe and secure home where they can live in security, peace and with dignity. A set of standards have also been recognized to ensure that a home is adequate for its inhabitants, meaning that it is affordable, secure, habitable, accessible, close to services, in an acceptable location, and culturally appropriate.
All of these international standards apply to housing standards in Canada as the NHSA and the HousingTO 2020-2030 Action Plan recognize that housing is a human right. However, there is much work to be done for this right to be realized for many people across the country.
To understand systemic barriers, let’s use the following example. Several groups of people can face similar housing challenges, not because of their individual circumstances, but because they stem from the same root causes. For instance, people who work a minimum wage job may be struggling to pay their rent in Toronto because they don’t earn enough to afford the rising cost of housing. Similarly, people who have lost their job as a result of the pandemic may also be struggling to pay their rent because of income loss. While the individual circumstances of people in these two groups may be different, the root cause is the same – there is a lack of affordable housing in Toronto.
These are ‘systemic barriers’ and there are several at play that deny the realization of the right to housing for many communities in Toronto who are simply trying to find an accessible, adequate and affordable place to call home.
The NHSA is Canada’s first piece of legislation that identifies housing as a fundamental human right as recognized under international law. It recognizes that all people have the “right to live somewhere in security, peace and dignity.” This law requires the federal government to develop and support rights-based housing policies to advance its commitment to progressively realize the right to housing over time. It has also created mechanisms to engage with vulnerable communities who are facing systemic housing challenges to ensure that housing policies respond effectively to the needs of communities.
Three key mechanisms have been created under the NHSA to hold the federal government accountable to implement the right to housing:
Each of these mechanisms has a distinct role and a set of responsibilities, while all three interact with one another. Together they provide an innovative and participatory model through which systemic housing issues and human rights claims can be brought forward by affected groups and reviewed outside of the judicial system. Our primer provides further details of the functions and responsibilities of these mechanisms and how they work together.
Following the adoption of the National Housing Strategy Act in July 2019, the City of Toronto took an historic step by aligning its own housing policy with a rights-based approach. The HousingTO 2020-2030 Action Plan was adopted in December 2019 and includes an updated Toronto Housing Charter. The updated Charter recognizes and commits to progressively realize the right to housing, and affirms that all residents have the right to an equal opportunity to thrive and that adequate housing is essential for the inherent dignity and well-being of an individual.
The plan identifies 13 strategic actions that the City will pursue in 10 years. Among its laudable goals, the City has committed to promote better access to good quality, safe and affordable housing for people who need it, as well as enhancing housing stability to keep residents in their homes. The plan aims to invest City funds into strategic measures that prevent evictions, create 40,000 affordable rental and supportive homes, and provide pathways to support better and more stable housing options for Indigenous communities, women, and seniors.
Crucially, to advance the right to housing the plan also commits that the City will establish accountability and oversight mechanisms to ensure that it follows through on its human rights commitments outlined in the plan. One major element of this oversight mechanism is the establishment of a Housing Commissioner’s Office to hold the City accountable to its commitment to advance the right to housing and to address systemic housing barriers.
Key human rights features of the HousingTO Plan include:
Embracing the right to housing framework in line with the National Housing Strategy Act and an updated Toronto Housing Charter based on key human rights principles.
While the NHSA and the HousingTO Plan provide important avenues to advance the right to housing over time, it is important to clarify that these are policy tools that do not require the federal government nor the City of Toronto to immediately provide every resident with an adequate home. They also do not provide a pathway for individuals or groups to claim their right to housing or to seek justice for a rights violation through the justice system.
Instead, what the NHSA and HousingTO plan do provide are avenues for impacted communities to bring forward their systemic barrier claims to official bodies that are responsible to look at the complaints. These bodies, like the Federal Housing Advocate or the Toronto Housing Commissioner, would then investigate the issues and send their recommendations to the government ministries responsible. Their recommendations will offer practical ways that the issues should be resolved in order to uphold that community’s right to housing.
The federal government is currently recruiting Canada’s first Federal Housing Advocate. Housing advocates are hopeful that this key position will be occupied by a qualified candidate with human rights expertise. At the municipal level, the City of Toronto’s original plans to establish the Housing Commissioner in 2020 have been delayed several times. It remains unclear when this key mechanism will be put in place. CERA and other housing advocates, specifically as part of the Right to Housing Toronto Network, will continue to urge the City to take this next step and emphasize that the Housing Commissioner is crucial to advance the right to housing in Toronto.
Once the Federal Housing Advocate and the Toronto Housing Commissioner are fully installed, it will be up to the groups and communities who face systemic barriers to make their case and claim their right to housing.
To support communities in this important work, CERA and the Right to Housing Toronto network are bringing together communities across the Greater Toronto Area in a series of workshops over the spring, summer and fall of 2021 to discuss the systemic barriers faced by communities. In these workshops we will explore how the right to housing can be claimed together through the mechanisms outlined in the NHSA and HousingTO plan.
The first workshop was held on May 5, 2021 – check out the recap.
The second workshop will be held on July 6, 2021. Registration will open soon – stay tuned!
One year ago, provincial and territorial governments began taking measures to address the plight of renters who were struggling to pay the rent, many falling into arrears and facing evictions. These measures have varied across the provinces and territories. Most have been quite modest in their support for tenants and were implemented only during the first few months of the pandemic, leaving many renters struggling to make ends meet as the pandemic continues to rage across the country.
Here we take a look at the available data that shows the scale of rental arrears and evictions during the pandemic across Canada, and the various provincial and territorial supports provided to residential renters.
An eviction ban was lifted on May 31, 2020. Tenants who have lost income because of the pandemic and have been evicted as a result of rental arrears can receive a 30-day extension on their eviction termination period from the date a notice of eviction was served to the tenant.
There is no data available on rental arrears or evictions in Nunavut, and there have been no announcements made by the Nunavut government concerning changes to rent or evictions during the pandemic.
One year ago, when the COVID-19 outbreak began, the World Health Organization urged all governments to implement comprehensive measures and recommendations for testing, contact tracing, physical distancing, and quarantining. Despite these calls, thousands of residents in overcrowded homes in Canada have been unable to safely quarantine or physically distance themselves from those who share their living space, putting everyone under these roofs at greater risk of contracting the virus.
While the negative impacts of living in overcrowded housing have been exacerbated by the pandemic, decades of unaffordable housing and poverty have been the main drivers leading people to double-up and crowd in together. Overcrowding is a symptom of what happens when the provision of rental housing is left to the private market, and the failure of our governments to ensure that the right to housing is realized for all people in Canada.
The housing affordability crisis that is driving overcrowded conditions and, as a result, increased exposure to a highly contagious and deadly virus is another systemic violation of the right to housing.
The United Nations defines an overcrowded housing unit as having the density of three or more persons situated per room under any circumstance. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) defines it in terms of whether a unit is ‘suitable’ to live in according to the National Occupancy Standard (NOS) which sets out a specific number of bedrooms corresponding to the size and make-up of residents in a household, as well as the level of affordability of an accommodation.
The NOS requirement is one bedroom for:
CMHC identifies the failure to meet these requirements, along with any major repairs needed, as an indication of unsuitable housing and core housing need. Given the scale at which overcrowding exists in Canada, as well as the people who are disproportionately impacted – low-income and racialized individuals – it is also a systemic barrier to the right to housing.
Under international human rights law, the ‘right to housing’ is recognized as the right of every person to a safe and secure home where they can live in security, peace and with dignity. A set of standards have also been recognized to ensure that a home is adequate for its inhabitants, including that it is affordable, secure, habitable, accessible, close to services, in an acceptable location, and culturally appropriate.
All of these standards apply to housing in Canada. The National Housing Strategy Act recognizes that housing is a human right, however this right has yet to be realized for many people across the country. Several groups of people face similar housing challenges, not because of their individual circumstances, but because they stem from the same root causes. These are ‘systemic barriers’, and the unaffordability of housing that causes overcrowding is one of the main barriers to realize the right to housing in particular for marginalized, low income and racialized households.
Across Canada, housing unaffordability and poverty remain the leading causes of overcrowded housing.
Between 2018 and 2019, average rental prices across Canada sprung up 3.9% for 2 bedroom apartments, which is the minimum size for a family. The average price for a family-sized apartment now starts at $2,416 in major cities like Toronto and in 2018 Statistics Canada reported that 20% of rental households in Toronto lived in overcrowded conditions. On average, only 7% of households in the lowest income bracket are able to find rental housing that they can afford.
Marginalized families who are financially strapped resort to living in multi-generational households with relatives, and statistics show that this is the reality for many racialized new-comers and Indigenous communities. This trend is especially acute in Toronto where there are three times as many racialized individuals living in overcrowded housing as compared to non-racialized individuals.
The pandemic has also added new challenges for individuals who live in overcrowded housing, as positive COVID-19 rates have been four times higher in neighborhoods with high levels of overcrowding.
In densely populated areas where the rent is very high, many residents – especially those with lower income – have limited housing options that they can afford, forcing some to seek smaller and cheaper places to live by doubling up and crowding into homes that are already at capacity. In Toronto, the areas most heavily affected by the pandemic are also those with most densely populated, with predominantly low income, new immigrant, and racialized households.
When a living space is too small, doesn’t have enough bedrooms, and is unsuitable for residents, individuals within a household may not be able to physically distance themselves or self-isolate. If any of those household members is an essential worker, the chances of them contracting and spreading COVID-19 within the household and community is even higher.
This is especially the case for racialized women, who are more likely to work in the lowest-paying jobs and in occupations that also put them at greater risk of contracting COVID-19, including as janitors, cashiers, nursing assistants, and personal support workers.
Migrant farm workers in Southern Ontario are also reported to be more vulnerable to COVID-19 because of the crowded housing that their employers provide for them, and several COVID-19 outbreaks among migrant workers were reported in 2020. While the federal government outlined basic guidelines for migrant workers’ housing and physical distancing, it did not require proof from employers that the guidelines were being followed, and employer-provided housing is exempt from Ontario’s Residential Tenancies Act, meaning there is little recourse to address this issue among migrant workers.
In the fall of 2020, the Government of Canada announced funding for 140 new Voluntary Self-Isolation Centres in Toronto that people living in crowded homes who tested positive for COVID-19 could live in temporarily, and similar measures have been taken by other cities in Canada and the United States where overcrowded housing caused by unaffordability and poverty is also an issue.
However, these voluntary initiatives still require residents of overcrowded housing to choose to use these facilities, and the underlying causes of overcrowded housing which are contributing to a higher risk of COVID-19 spreading have not been addressed.
An unregulated private rental market that fails to provide adequate and appropriate housing options for people at affordable levels, and the lack of action from governments over decades to realize the right to housing have directly contributed to the housing challenges and increased risk of COVID-19 faced by residents of overcrowded housing today. Unless action is taken by all levels of government to progressively realize the right to housing in Canada, more and more people, predominantly those who are low income and facing marginalization, will be forced to live in overcrowded housing and face all the challenges that come along with it, during this pandemic and far beyond.
Even though it’s 2021, women continue to face a unique set of challenges to accessing adequate, accessible and affordable housing.
In this blog, in honour of International Women’s Day, we take a closer look at how gender-based violence, intersectional marginalization, poverty and extreme economic inequality, and the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic have worsened the systemic barriers that women face in housing and continue to jeopardize their right to adequate housing.
Under international human rights law, the ‘right to housing’ is recognized as the right of every person to a safe and secure home where they can live in security, peace and with dignity. A set of standards have also been recognized to ensure that a home is adequate for its inhabitants, including that it is affordable, secure, habitable, accessible, close to services, in an acceptable location, and culturally appropriate.
All of these standards apply to housing in Canada. The National Housing Strategy Act recognizes that housing is a human right, however this right has yet to be realized for many people across the country. Several groups of people face similar housing challenges, not because of their individual circumstances, but because they stem from the same root causes. These are ‘systemic barriers’, and there are several at play that deny the realization of the right to housing for women.
A violent home is not a safe home, and violence is one of the main drivers of women’s homelessness. According to the rights-based definition that housing must be safe and secure, violence in the home is a clear violation of the right to housing. Given that women account for 79% of those who experience violence by an intimate partner, domestic violence is also a systemic barrier to the realization of women’s right to housing.
Women who experience violence in their housing are at greater risk of remaining in unsafe situations, and are often forced to decide between staying in a violent home, or leaving and experiencing poverty or homelessness, sometimes with their children in tow. Some women who seek to leave an unsafe situation may not be able to find alternative housing that they can afford, and as a result may end up in the shelter system or living on the streets.
This is especially true for women with limited financial resources. In 2018, the Canadian Women’s Foundation estimated that 25% of women work part-time and make up about 70% of Canada’s part-time labour force, making women less likely to be able to afford safe and adequate housing on their own. It also found that women with children who leave their partners and become single parents are five times more likely to live in poverty than if they continued living with their partner.
In Ontario, the Special Priority Policy under the Housing Services Act, 2011 is supposed to safeguard victims of domestic violence from experiencing homelessness by prioritizing their applications for social housing. However, the Canadian Women’s Foundation reports that eligibility criteria which requires women to provide “proof” of violence can leave them at increased risk of staying in an unsafe situation while they attempt to document the violence. They make the case that a rights-based approach would prioritize women’ safety above these types of requirements.
An intersectional approach to address this systemic barrier to women’s right to housing is crucial given that rates and risk of violence are higher among racialized women, Indigenous women, LGBT individuals, and women living with disabilities.
In addition to experiencing higher rates of violence, women who experience multiple and intersecting forms of marginalization based on gender, race, ethnicity, social and economic status, and disability face the most deplorable housing conditions in Canada.
In 2020 the YWCA reported that many trans and non-binary individuals are at increased risk of violence at home, particularly Black and Indigenous trans women, and may also face barriers to accessing housing support through the shelter system which has been segregated by gender. Without housing that is specifically designed and dedicated for women and gender-diverse peoples, the cycles of homelessness, violence, and housing instability will be difficult to break.
Women with disabilities face significant discrimination when trying to access housing, as reported in a 2018 brief by the Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children at Western University. In particular, landlords exclude them as applicants, evict them or fail to accommodate them for their disability-related needs. The brief also found that these experiences are compounded if the individual with a disability identifies as a woman, a racialized individual, trans, and/or has migrant or precarious status in Canada.
A 2008 study by the Centre for Urban & Community Studies at the University of Toronto demonstrated that migrant women without status are exceptionally vulnerable, and often live in dangerous conditions because of housing instability, poverty, and exploitation. Migrant women lack sufficient rights to secure safe and adequate housing in part because federal law does not guarantee the right to housing to all women regardless of citizenship. Non-status migrant women who are pregnant face additional challenges to access secure employment, which jeopardize their already precarious housing situations, and sometimes force them to enter family shelters.
The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness found that contradictory and discriminatory policies and practices relating to social assistance, housing support, and child welfare present additional barriers to the right to housing for low-income women. They found that many social assistance systems cut entitlements for mothers when a child is taken away by child welfare, and this also puts her in a position of losing her housing. For women who are transitioning out of public institutions like healthcare systems or prisons, they found that there are insufficient supports available to ensure women can access housing that is affordable and meets their needs. These failures in the public system contribute to severe housing challenges and intergenerational cycles of marginalization, violence, housing instability, and homelessness.
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly exacerbated the already worsening housing crisis in Canada. Women have been disproportionately affected by the economic impacts of the pandemic, which have further contributed to their housing instability and have compounded the systemic barriers to their right to housing.
Income loss and job losses have been disproportionately experienced by women and lower income workers who predominantly rely on rental housing. More than 20,000 women left the workforce between February and October 2020, while about 68,000 men joined it. While women made up just under half of all paid workers in Canada, one month into the pandemic they accounted for two-thirds (63%) of all job losses, and 70% of all job losses among workers aged 25 to 54 years.
The loss of jobs and incomes has contributed to an arrears and evictions crisis across the country, and women are bearing the brunt of this crisis as they are forced to decide between paying rent or putting food on the table, which is especially difficult for single mothers and low-income workers. Racialized women have experienced additional impacts, as the YWCA reported that they earn approximately 58 cents for every dollar earned by non-racialized men, and they are more likely to work in the lowest-paying occupations that also put them at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 including as janitors, cashiers, nursing assistants and personal support workers.
While emergency measures, restrictions and stay-at-home orders were issued in order to protect people from these health risks, these measures directly contributed to the sharp increase of a different kind of threat for women who were forced to remain in violent homes.
The Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH) which represents over 70 shelters, reported that 20 percent of their organizations have experienced an increase in calls since the pandemic began, and calls to Nisa Homes, a transitional home for Muslim and immigrant women and children, doubled in the first few weeks of the pandemic. The Ending Violence Association of Canada reported that this has been especially the case for women with disabilities; Indigenous women; Black and racialized women; non-status, immigrant and refugee women; trans, non-binary, and gender diverse people; sex workers; and women experiencing economic and housing precarity.
The exacerbation of violence against women during the pandemic is a further violation of women’s right to housing, not only because the incidents of violence have increased, but also because it has increased women’s housing precarity during this time. As noted above, single-women led households are five times more likely to live in poverty than those in two-parent households, and they would have faced even greater difficulties escaping a violent home during the pandemic when many low-income women who lost their income or job would have had even fewer resources to dedicate to their housing. On top of this, women escaping a violent home would need to consider the health risks of increased exposure to the virus if they end up staying in a crowded shelter.
The barriers to the realization of women’s right to housing are multiple and complex, and removing them will require a comprehensive approach to address the systemic inequalities faced by women.
All governments have a big role to play to address and remedy the systemic barriers to women’s right to housing, and the Government of Canada has already formally committed to do so in its National Housing Strategy Act (NHSA). The NHSA also commits the federal government to progressively realize this right over time, and requires that affected groups are meaningfully engaged in the process, meaning that the government must work directly with women of all identities to support the realization of their right to housing.
There has never been a more urgent time for the federal government to act on its commitment. We need our governments to ramp up housing supports and services to protect women – particularly racialized women, trans and non-binary individuals, women with disabilities, and migrant women – who are increasingly vulnerable to homelessness, unsafe housing, and systemic violations of their right to adequate housing.
Like many cities across Canada, Toronto is in the midst of a housing crisis that has been made worse by COVID-19.
As the pandemic rages on and housing challenges become increasingly more acute and widespread, we continue to keep our eyes set on how the right to housing is advancing in the City of Toronto. One of the principal ways they can do that is by establishing the Office of the Housing Commissioner.
How would a Housing Commissioner help to address the housing crisis in Toronto?
For years, housing advocates have raised the alarm over systemic issues that are contributing to a decades-long housing crisis. Ultimately, all levels of government have the power and responsibility to address these issues, and a rights-based approach to housing policy is the best way they can do that.
We need governments to step up in a big way, and Toronto City Council did that in 2019 when it became the first municipality in Canada to commit to progressively realize the right to housing through its ten-year HousingTO plan. The Housing Commissioner would be one of the City’s best allies to help them achieve this goal.
Since 2019, housing advocates – including CERA and the Right to Housing Toronto Network – have provided the City with recommendations grounded in human rights expertise to shape its policy. The right to housing is a new framework for the City, and it needs to equip itself with the appropriate tools to carry out its task.
The Housing Commissioner would be one of those tools. It would be the expert in the room, guaranteeing that the City would be given rights-based recommendations and advice when their plans may need adjusting, and to keep them on the right track over the next ten years.
What would a Housing Commissioner do?
The City’s HousingTO plan outlines the functions of the Housing Commissioner:
“[The] Housing Commissioner of Toronto will work with City divisions, agencies, boards and commissions to review housing programs and policies to ensure that they align with and advance the principles expressed in the Toronto Housing Charter and support their implementation over the next decade. Additionally, the Housing Commissioner of Toronto will monitor the progress in consultation with groups vulnerable to housing insecurity and report annually to City Council regarding systemic issues related to the City’s compliance with the Toronto Housing Charter.”
In essence, the Commissioner would be empowered with a mandate to support the City in fulfilling its commitment to realize the right to housing. The City has set itself several laudable goals that aim to address the housing crisis through a rights-based approach, and the Housing Commissioner will play a key function to hold the City accountable to meet those goals. In other words, the Housing Commissioner is an accountability mechanism, and one of the key ways to ensure that the City’s goal to realize the right is housing is actually achieved and doesn’t remain as an aspiration on paper only.
Specifically, the Commissioner would:
What needs to happen next to establish the Office?
In 2019, City Council directed the City Manager to establish the Housing Commissioner in 2020, in consultation with human rights experts. Despite making some important progress on other areas of its HousingTO plan, the City’s timeline for the Housing Commissioner has been pushed into 2021. No specific implementation date or update on its current status has been released to date.
We will continue to closely watch when and how the City will move this item forward. We will also take every opportunity to provide the City with our recommendations to establish the Commissioner in a way that ensures it can effectively carry out its mandate, including by providing it with an appropriately resourced office to complete its work. To that end, it is crucial that the Commissioner’s Office is adequately resourced and is set up to operate independently, despite reporting to City Council, so that it operates in the spirit of public accountability.
In light of the worsening housing crisis in Toronto, we look forward to seeing this office take shape in 2021 and prioritized at upcoming City Council meetings.
UPDATE: On June 2, 2021, the stay-at-home order was lifted and the enforcement of evictions in Ontario resumed.
On January 13, 2021 the Ontario government announced a temporary pause on evictions that will be in effect for the duration of the current state of emergency.
This is a key relief for tenants in Ontario, as thousands have lost jobs and incomes since the start of the pandemic and have been struggling to pay rent for months.
This pause on evictions is a temporary measure. Sign up to receive our emails and we will update you about future changes to eviction processes in Ontario.
1. There is a pause on evictions
As of January 13, 2021, most residential evictions have been paused. This includes evictions that were ordered before January 13th, but not yet carried out.
2. Landlords can continue to give tenants eviction notices
Your landlord can still give you an eviction notice during the state of emergency. This includes if you are unable to pay your rent or if you do not pay your rent.
➤ What to do if you receive an eviction notice:
3. The Landlord and Tenant Board will continue to hold eviction hearings
The Landlord and Tenant Board will continue to schedule and hold eviction hearings throughout the state of emergency. This includes eviction hearings for tenants who are unable to pay their rent.
What to do if you have an eviction hearing:
4. The Landlord and Tenant Board will continue to issue eviction orders
The Landlord and Tenant Board will continue to issue eviction orders throughout the state of emergency. This includes eviction orders that can be issued without a hearing taking place at the Landlord and Tenant Board. This means you might receive an eviction order from the Landlord and Tenant Board, even during the state of emergency.
What to do if you receive an eviction order:
Additional information:
We’re ringing in the new year on a much different note. As several provinces have recently gone into another round of lockdowns, more people will join the thousands who are still reeling from the loss of their jobs or incomes last year, struggling to make ends meet and maintain stable housing.
Despite the many challenges that 2020 brought, we are still several steps ahead than we were a year ago. As we look forward, here are 4 key developments that we’re looking out for that will advance the right to housing in Canada in 2021.
1. Stepping up government support for renters during the pandemic
While little support was earmarked for renters in 2020, the need for relief only continues to intensify. One of the most critical and immediate measures needed right now during the current wave of lockdowns and as more people lose their jobs and incomes is a moratorium on evictions, which provinces across the country have so far failed to reinstate.
In particular, we are keeping an eye on Premier Doug Ford to sign an executive order to implement the moratorium which was unanimously recommended with full-party support in a motion passed by the Ontario Legislature on December 8th. [UPDATE: A temporary pause on evictions in Ontario was put in place on January 13, 2021. Read more.]
Along with the moratorium, we will also continue to decry the serious human rights and justice issues at Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board until they come to an end.
If provinces continue to be complacent in the face of the rising evictions crisis, we will be looking to municipalities and the federal government to act with the urgency that this crisis demands. Although housing laws are under provincial jurisdiction, governments at the municipal and federal levels can also step up to support tenants in different ways. For instance, the federal government could provide provinces with conditional funding that is locked into eviction prevention measures. Or, municipalities could expand their own services to support renters directly, like Toronto’s Rent Bank and Eviction Prevention in the Community (EPIC) programs.
2021 is a crucial year for governments to throw their full weight behind renters, especially at these critical moments of the pandemic.
2. Meeting the first Federal Housing Advocate with a strong background in the right to housing
Once again this year, we continue to monitor how the federal government is advancing the National Housing Strategy, and its commitment to progressively realize the right to housing across the country. In 2020, the government made some important progress by appointing the National Housing Council, and committed to expedite the creation of 3,000 new affordable housing units by March 2021 in response to the urgency of the housing crisis made worse by the pandemic.
One area where we expect some movement in 2021 is the appointment of Canada’s first Federal Housing Advocate, as the recruitment process is currently underway. Most importantly, we are interested in who the government appoints to assume this key position.
The Housing Advocate will carry out an important mandate to advance the right to housing, and it is crucial that the chosen candidate has a strong background in the right to housing so that this individual is well-positioned to carry out the functions of the role through a rights-based approach. Stay tuned in the months to come for the announcement and our reaction to who will assume this role.
3. Establishing the Office of the Housing Commissioner in Toronto
As the only municipality in Canada so far to have made a commitment to progressively realize the right to housing, we continue keeping a watchful eye on how Toronto will move forward, in particular by establishing the Office of the Housing Commissioner.
In September 2020, the City of Toronto released its HousingTO Implementation Plan 2020-2030 with details on how it intends to address affordable housing and homelessness over the next ten years. While the City has outlined some laudable goals, we have yet to see any movement to establish the Office of the Housing Commissioner which was a cornerstone of the City’s commitment.
The Housing Commissioner is key to hold the City accountable and to ensure that it implements a housing policy with the correct measures and targets in place, that are truly grounded in a rights-based approach. The Commissioner would also play a key role in making recommendations that guide the City toward sustainable and effective housing policies going forward.
Not only will we be closely watching how and when the City will move this item forward, we will also be taking every opportunity to provide our recommendations to establish this office in a way that ensures it can operate with independence and adequate resources so that it can effectively carry out its mandate.
In light of the worsening housing crisis in Toronto, we will remain expectant to see this office take shape in 2021.
4. Expanding the implementation of the right to housing across Canada
One thing we can be sure of in 2021 is that – through our project with the National Right to Housing Network – community leaders, lived experts and policy advocates will continue to work together to identify systemic violations of the right to housing, propose solutions to claim the right to housing and influence systemic change.
This year, we will bring together leaders, experts and advocates from across the country to dive deeper into the mechanisms available under the National Housing Strategy Act that can be used to claim the right to housing.
Stay tuned for opportunities to join this work in 2021 by subscribing to our newsletter.
Across Ontario, a worsening housing crisis is making adequate, affordable housing increasingly out of reach, with more and more households lacking housing that meets basic conditions of affordability, security of tenure, accessibility, and habitability. The scope and scale of this crisis requires nothing short of a fundamental shift towards a human-rights based framework to housing policy. At the heart of this framework is the progressive realization of adequate housing as a human right, rather than a commodity to be bought and sold.
On Monday November 9th, Ontario’s New Democratic Party released a Housing Plan (“the Housing Plan”) titled “Homes You Can Afford” as part of the party’s 2022 election platform. The Housing Plan includes a number of measures aimed at building and preserving affordable housing, cracking down on the financialization of housing, supporting the development of housing for vulnerable individuals and communities, and protecting tenants against unlawful and bad-faith evictions.
Here we run down what the Ontario NDPs’ Housing Plan gets right, what’s missing and CERA’s take.
Encouragingly, the Housing Plan incorporates the language, process and substance of a rights-based approach to housing policy. The Housing Plan begins with an acknowledgment that housing is a human right and that inadequate housing disproportionately impacts women, Black, Indigenous, and racialized people, individuals living with mental health and addictions challenges, and 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals. From here, and throughout the Housing Plan, housing and housing policy are seen as key tools to achieving social, economic, health, and environmental goals such as ending homelessness, reversing the financialization of housing, addressing mental health issues through the use of supportive housing, and taking measures that recognize the important linkages between housing and the climate, in particular increasing energy efficiency through environmentally progressive building standards. Many of the Housing Plan’s proposals focus on improving housing outcomes for those in greatest need and in building sustainable and inclusive communities – both of which are priorities in a rights-based approach to housing policy. A commitment to meaningful engagement with and participation from Indigenous and Northern Ontario communities, individuals experiencing homelessness, and survivors of domestic violence sets the tone for tackling the housing needs of these individuals and communities. In short, the Housing Plan contains many of the protocols and measurements necessary for upholding the human right to adequate housing.
In a human rights-based framework, everyone has the right to equitable access to adequate housing. This right implies more than having four walls and a roof, and is not limited to the basic supply and availability of housing. At minimum, adequate housing meets the following basic conditions:
The Housing Plan includes specific policies aimed at ensuring the various elements of the right to housing listed above are met. Highlights include:
Affordability
Security of Tenure
Accessibility
Habitability
Location
Serviced by necessary infrastructure
Cultural adequacy
A key cause of the housing crisis is the financialization of housing which treats housing as a market commodity rather than a social good – a distortion that is responsible for increased homelessness and a lack of adequate housing. When housing is thought of as a commodity, it is no longer recognized for what it is: a fundamental human right. In order to advance the right to housing, active measures must be put in place to ensure financialization no longer continues.
The Housing Plan responds to and addresses the issue of the financialization of housing through several policy proposals targeting housing speculation and hidden ownership. Many of these proposals are inspired by recent policies adopted by the Government of British Columbia, which include:
There are a number of ways that the Housing Plan could be enhanced to further protect the right to adequate housing.
The availability of timely legal advice, information and/or representation is necessary to ensure tenants can offset the existing power imbalance between landlords, many of whom have access to legal professionals, and tenants. The Housing Plan does not include increased funding for Legal Aid Services for tenants who require legal advice, representation and information to defend themselves against eviction and enforce their rights, nor does it provide increased funding for non-profits and housing advocacy groups that play a crucial role in assisting tenants facing eviction, discrimination and impediments to enforcing their rights as tenants who are not able to avail of legal aid services.
Bill 184, the misleadingly named “Protecting Tenants and Strengthening Community Housing Act,” threatens several critical components of the Right to Housing – security of tenure, affordability, and safety. This Bill strips tenants of several procedural rights guaranteed by the Residential Tenancies Act and will result in more evictions into homelessness for tenants across Ontario. The Housing Plan does not mention any specific intention to repeal this Bill and restore the rights to tenants facing eviction.
While the omissions mentioned above represent some important missed opportunities to level the playing field between landlords and tenants, the remainder of the Housing Plan represents a substantive step forward in addressing the significant housing needs of low income and vulnerable Ontarians, which have only been exacerbated as a result of COVID-19. Of particular interest is the commitment to provide 311,000 tenants with financial support to pay their rent, which could be the most significant opportunity to stem the likely wave of COVID-19 evictions that many of the organizations and individuals we work with remain deeply concerned about. Also of interest are the commitments to crack down on unlawful evictions due to landlord’s own use provisions and above guideline increases, two processes which we know to be widely misused and which contribute to the housing crisis in Ontario by facilitating rent escalation beyond a level that is reasonable. We are encouraged by the Housing Plan and hope that the omissions mentioned above may be addressed in future policy development or platform pieces.
September 2020 ushered in significant housing policy developments, with the Government of Canada and City of Toronto both taking a solid step in the right direction, and the Ontario government making some progress while still lagging behind its counterparts.
As we enter the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, these developments – big and small – could not come at a better time.
Here we’ve distilled the most important aspects that you need to know.
Toronto’s HousingTO 2020-2030 Implementation Plan was released on September 15, nine months after the City made an historic commitment to realize the right to housing. It contains the very first details of how the City intends to address affordable housing and homelessness over the next ten years.
The City has set the following ten-year targets:
While the City’s plan is a good next step to realize its commitments, key details including timelines and concrete dates, as well as additional resources, are needed to better understand how and when the City will reach the targets it has set for itself. Last week we identified the good and the gaps in their plan.
The good:
The gaps:
We also delivered our ideas of what we are hoping to see in the plan to the City’s Planning and Housing Committee, including establishing an Office of the Housing Commissioner and continued investment in eviction prevention services as a way to ensure the positive gains made by the HousingTO Plan are not erased.
In short, we asked the City to:
What’s next
The Planning and Housing Committee met on September 22 to discuss the implementation plan, and made several recommendations for improvements, in some instances even pushing for more ambitious targets. The Committee’s recommendations will be taken up by Toronto City Council at their meetings on September 30th and October 1st, where we will keep a watchful eye and report on further developments regarding the future of their housing plan.
Tune into Toronto City Council meetings:
On September 17, the Ontario government proposed Bill 204, a piece of legislation to temporarily freeze residential rent increases in 2021 for most rent-controlled and non-rent-controlled units.
Here is what you need to know about your rent in 2021:
Cracks in the ice
While the freeze will certainly provide some relief to Ontarian renters, the legislation fails on two major areas which housing and tenant advocates – including CERA – had called on the government to address:
The Government of Canada made several announcements related to housing and homelessness in their highly-anticipated Speech from the Throne on September 23, effectively moving their National Housing Strategy forward in a crucial moment for the country.
These are the commitments the Government of Canada has made related to housing and homelessness:
While these are all laudable goals, we look forward to seeing key detail and resources to support the implementation of these commitments. Stay tuned for further updates and analysis from CERA as the government releases more detail on their plans.
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