The National Housing Council engaged SHS Consulting and the SHIFT Collaborative to run a Solutions Lab to better understand and provide recommendations to advance the right to adequate housing in Canada. The first phase of the project conducted surveys and focus groups and engaged with people with lived experience of housing need and homelessness and organizations supporting them.
The findings include:
– There is an overwhelming and worsening need for housing,
– Respondents felt that the conversation around the right to housing and the need for housing has already happened, along with many consultations
– Continued need and advocacy can lead to burnout and feelings of helplessness
– Participants called for investments in the maximum of available resources—everything possible must be done to address housing challenges for those in greatest need.
– There is a need for easily accessible legal recourse in the case of rights violations to solidify this right
– A national movement is needed for everyone to view and support housing as a human right
Topics include: public feedback on housing rights, core housing need, Right to affordable housing (R2AH), governmental recommendations