Demand that governments make affordable, secure and safe Housing for All a top priority!

All across Canada, homelessness has become an acceptable situation in urban centres and even in smaller towns. Only any given night, over 35,000 Canadians are without a place to call home. This is not acceptable. In our so-called ‘Just Society’, no one should be homeless. We demand action from all levels of government. Housing is a right, according to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and we demand that right for all people.

In Vancouver, we see this crisis most acutely: even the city’s homeless count has risen to higher than ever: 1,847 people. For the sake of safety and community, people have joined together in a camp to demand homes. We wholeheartedly agree with the Community Vision for this city-owned site: 100% social housing at the welfare rate ($375). Visit https://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/ourhomescantwait/ for more.

There is a crisis of homelessness, housing insecurity and displacement in working class & poor communities across the country.  The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), the International League of Peoples Struggle (ILPS) are initiating a day of action in towns and cities across Canada on Saturday July 9 to demand:

Federal Government: Spend $5 billion per year on non-market housing affordable, secure and safe housing for the people! Secure this money by cutting $1 billion dollars from each of the military budget, the prison budget, police, immigration enforcement and detention, and by ending subsidies to Canadian mining companies responsible for plunder and human rights abuses in other countries.

Provincial Governments: Rescind the new poor laws that criminalize the poor and homeless and replace them with rent control laws to eliminate speculation and profiteering off people’s basic need for housing.

Local Governments: Fund housing not police! Use city resources, including zoning and regulatory frameworks to eliminate real-estate speculation and profiteering and stop displacement of poor communities.

We also encourage local organizations and communities to make their own demands linked to local conditions and campaigns.  

In making this call we recognize the racist and colonial nature of the Canadian State which results in disproportionate homelessness, housing insecurity and incarceration of Indigenous people.  We stand in solidarity with Indigenous struggles for sovereignty, self-determination and justice across this land.