Addressing Poverty by Taking Action on Housing

Action Alert

Every day nurses are reminded that it is impossible to be healthy without access to safe and affordable housing. Let’s together, all nurses, help our federal leaders wake up to the scandal of homelessness and inadequate shelter in Canada.

In anticipation of National Housing Day on Friday, November 22, 2013, please

Send the Action Alert (AA) below to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other political leaders at the federal level
Send this AA broadly to your network, asking them to also sign and distribute to their own networks

Other actions that you can take along with additional resources can be found below the AA.

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As we get ready to mark another National Housing Day on November 22, 2013, I am ashamed that Canada remains one of the few countries in the world without a national housing strategy. It is inexplicable that we ignore the evidence and fail to implement the recommendations of the 2009 Senate report, In From the Margins: A Call to Action on Poverty, Housing, and Homelessness, such as the creation of a national poverty and housing strategy. A visit by the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, in 2007 resulted in a call for a "comprehensive and co-ordinated national housing policy based on the indivisibility of human rights and the protection of the most vulnerable." The United Nations'  Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, James Anaya, concluded his October 2013 visit with the observation that "funding for aboriginal housing is woefully inadequate."

Canada's lack of action to ensure the human right to housing is eroding people's health, dignity, and ability to survive. In the next federal budget, the government must protect and invest in existing social housing by restoring the annual operating grants of $1.7 billion for social housing subsidies. Federal funding for social housing construction, programs, and services for people who are homeless must be increased and made permanent in the next federal budget. A pan-Canadian housing strategy based on human rights is overdue. We can and must do better.

CC: Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Tom Mulcair, Leader of the Official Opposition, Justin Trudeau, Leader of the Third Party, Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party, Daniel Paillé—Leader of the Bloc Québécois, Minister Jason Kenney, Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, Rodger Cuzner, Jean Francois Fortin

What else can you do to support a week of action for housing (November 22-29, 2013)

Check out other events that might be happening in your community at http://action4housing.wordpress.com/events-and-actions/ [1] For example, there is rally planned on November 22, 2013 at noon at Yonge Dundas Square in Toronto [2] and an event in Ottawa [3] on November 27, 2013 at 1:00 pm.
Interested organizations are welcome to create and hang a banner to mark National Housing Day on November 22, 2013 and let it fly all week during the Pan-Canadian Week of Action for Housing (November 22-29, 2013). Click here to see a banner at Street Health http://www.streethealth.ca/ [4]

Additional Resources:

Housing Opens Doors Campaign [5]
Pan-Canadian Week of Action for Housing [6]
RNAO Open Letter to Prime Minister and Premier: Invest in Poverty Reduction [7]
RNAO Resolution to the Canadian Nurses Association, Implement the In From the Margins Report Recommendations to Address the Crisis of Poverty, Housing, and Homelessness in Canada [8]
Wellesley Institute, Housing and Health Resources [9]