The Housing Justice Project has released a new report with 8 calls to action to bring Victoria’s housing and homelessness system into alignment with the right to housing.   

In this report, we assess the living options available to people attempting to survive, escape, or recover from homelessness using publicly available data and testimony of lived experts. We assess housing options using International Human Rights Standards and the right to housing set out in Canada’s National Housing Strategy Act 2019. 

This report is about the realities of trying to access adequate housing not what is promised or what is on paper. Throughout this report, you will see quotes from members of the Housing Justice Project which were generated by individuals as part of our research together. Importantly, this report provides a clear line of sight to glaring gaps on the reality of the right to adequate housing in Victoria, B.C.

We are making 8 urgent and concrete calls to action. They are:

Calls to Action

1. There must be direct and meaningful involvement of people affected by homelessness as partners and in employment roles.

2. Until there is adequate housing for all, end displacement of people living outdoors. Work with people in encampments to protect their human rights and provide basic services such as running water, electricity, bathrooms, sanitation, and garbage disposal. Stop Displacement, Stop the Sweeps.

3. Eliminate long-term stays in shelters by moving people into permanent housing within 30 days.

4. End evictions from transitional programs into homelessness. Move people directly from homelessness or transitional programs into permanent, adequate housing that costs no more than one-third of income, or the shelter rate with security of tenure.

5. In Greater Victoria alone, we need 2,000 net new deeply subsidized and shelter-rate homes constructed annually for the next 10 years to prevent and end mass homelessness in our region.

6. Provide everyone who is exiting homelessness with adequate housing as defined by The Housing Justice Project. Adequate housing aligns with human rights, and includes security of tenure which cannot be found in program agreements.

7. Reconciliation includes ending homelessness for Indigenous people with Indigenous-led housing and culture as healing.

8. We need rental supplements that are easy to access and are enough money to rent an apartment in the market.