M E D I A R E L E A S E
HOUSING IS A HUMAN RIGHT
The Committee is gravely concerned that such a wealthy country as Canada has allowed the problem of homelessness and inadequate housing to grow to such proportions that the mayors of Canada's ten largest cities have now declared homelessness a national disaster.
United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural RightsUltimately, a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for the "least of these."
Martin Luther King Jr.
Z e r o % C i t y ?
INSIST THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TAKE ACTION ON HOMELESSNESS: SUPPORT THE 1% SOLUTION.
Homes not Bombs Hamilton invite you to attend ZERO CITY, a cardboard community set up to demonstrate that a government not willing to implement the 1% solution to homelessness is preparing the way for increased misery in our communities. ZERO CITY will set up in front of Liberal M.P. John Bryden's constituency office Wednesday afternoon (February 9, 2000) at 5:00 p.m.
ZERO CITY hopes to draw attention to the fact that a motion before the House of Parliament (M123), to be debated on Friday (February 11) at 1:30 p.m., is seen by many anti-poverty organizations as a desperately needed first step to addressing the serious crisis of lack of affordable housing.
"If the government doesn't seize this opportunity to address the lack of decent, affordable housing, they are dooming millions of people to a future of life on the streets, in places like Zero City. We need a 1% beginning, not a zero percent abandonment," says Homes Not Bombs spokesperson Gail Lorimer.
ZERO CITY will be constructed out of cardboard and found materials. Candlelight vigils will remind people that a lasting solution to homelessness needs the attention, and financial support of government. People are being encouraged to contact their MPs and ask them to support this motion.
Wentworth Burlington MP John Bryden's office is located at 2 King Street West in Dundas.
For More information about ZERO CITY please contact Gail Lorimer at (905) 634-7654
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NOTES FROM ZERO PERCENT CITY
Wednesday February 9, 2000."Homeless: Studied to Death; Social Housing Now!"
A cardboard city sprang up in minutes outside Liberal MP (Wentworth/Burlington) John Bryden's constituency office in Dundas, Ontario today.
ZERO CITY, a "cardboard community" was set up by Homes Not Bombs Hamilton activists to draw attention to government inaction on the crisis of homelessness. A sign asking "Is 1% too much 2 ask?" highlighted the concern that a government not willing to implement the "1%" solution to homelessness is preparing the way for increased misery in our communities. The 1% motion, drafted by NDP member Libby Davies, states
"That, in the opinion of this House, the government should adopt a national housing strategy and housing supply program, in co-operation with the provinces, that recognizes housing as a human right and meets the goal of providing an additional 1% of federal budgetary spending to meet basic housing needs in Canada."
Many anti-poverty organizations see the 1% motion as a desperately needed first step to addressing the serious crisis of lack of affordable housing in Canada.
"If the government doesn't seize this opportunity to address the lack of decent, affordable housing, they are dooming millions of people to a future of life on the streets, in places like Zero City. We need a 1% beginning, not a zero percent abandonment," says Homes Not Bombs spokesperson Gail Lorimer.
Leaflets encouraged people to contact their MPs and ask them to support this motion, scheduled for debate on Friday, February 11 at 1:30 p.m. About 20 people attended Zero City, which ended with a candlelight vigil, as the names of people who have died homeless were read out. The refrain "people who have died homeless, who might have lived: 1% is not too much" was repeated at intervals.
54 Homes Not Bombs activists were arrested in Ottawa, November 12, 1999, for taking part in a non-violent demonstration attempting to convert the War Department into the Housing Department. Trials are pending. Homes Not Bombs (Hamilton) can be reached at hasc@tao.ca or by phoning (905) 627-2696 or (905) 528-5925. Homes Not Bombs Toronto can be reached at tasc@web.net or (416) 651-5800.
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Dundas Star News, Wednesday, February 16, 2000
Bryden fingers Tories for homeless situation
Protesters are marching at wrong door, MP says
By Richard Leitner
Staff WriterWentworth-Burlington Liberal MP John Bryden says protesters are choosing the wrong target by demonstrating outside his office for more money for social housing.
Rejecting their calls for his government to boost its spending on social housing, Mr. Bryden said the province is to blame for the growing number of homeless people in Ontario because it prefers cutting taxes over fulfilling its constitutional responsibility for housing.
"As far as I'm concerned, the protesters are protesting at the wrong door. They should be protesting at the door of the area MPPs" he said, calling homelessness a provincial disgrace. "We all want tax cuts, but the whole idea of having organized society is that you have to pay a certain amount of tax for a certain amount of service. And as a government decides not to provide a minimum service that is expected by the taxpayers, the taxpayers should expect to see consequences."
During an early evening protest outside his Dundas constituency office last week, a dozen people called on Bryden and his government to commit to a target of spending an extra one percent of the federal budget on housing - about $2 billion annually, double what it currently spends.
The Chretien government stopped building social housing in 1993, a move that cut the planned construction of 75,000 units by 1997. It recently committed an extra $305 million for housing shelters over three years, but has made no indication it will start building housing units again.
"It was declared a national disaster by the United Nations but they've done nothing" said Randy Kay, a Dundas resident who helped organize last week's demonstration.
"They've studied it to death, literally to death - people are dying all the time - and they're studying and they want to study it more. It's time to start taking small steps toward (solving the problem)."
A member of the group Homes Not Bombs, Mr Kay said the federal government didn't blink an eye in spending $500 million on the war in Yugoslavia, so political will, rather than money, is at the root of the problem.
"Someone's got to take responsibility, Who is the federal government supposed to be governing for, if not all the people?," he said, calling the one percent target reasonable.
But Mr. Bryden said homelessness is less the result of a housing shortage than the provinces closing of psychiatric hospital beds and "desperate" underfunding of existing shelters.
He said he opposes his government re-entering social housing construction because it is a provincial responsibility and will only lead to more federal bashing.
"I feel very strongly that this federal government, and I hope the (upcoming) budget reflects it, has to spend in the federal areas, and that the provinces spend in the provincial areas," Mr. Bryden said.
"Otherwise, we get blamed for not spending in areas of provincial responsibility at the same time as we're blamed for not cutting taxes. I can tell you up here in Ottawa, I think just about every Liberal backbencher is fed up dealing with Ontario. We're fed up with the fact that we're being blamed for what is entirely an Ontario responsibility."
While Wentworth-Burlington currently has no provincial representative, Stoney Creek Tory MPP Brad Clark aid he believes his government is doing more than its fair share to address homelessness.
TREATMENT
The province has assumed financial and administrative responsibility for thousands of federal not-for-profit housing units, he said, calling the issue of psychiatric bed closures "a red herring" because discharged patients who refuse to take their medication cannot be forced into treatment.
"I think it's shameful that politicians from all levels of governments are still playing the blame game. It's the responsibility of municipalities, the province and the federal government to deal with the homeless issue," Mr. Clark said.
"I think everybody should be sitting down working together to solve the issue."
Murray Lumley, an Ancaster resident who also took part in the protest, said Canada is one of the few developed nations without a national housing strategy, something he blames on the current political climate.
"I think (federal Finance Minister) Paul Martin and the business leaders in Canada have gone the route of neo-liberalism or neo-conservatism that says the free market will take care of everything," he said.
"It doesn't work in the United States. They have a huge gap between the rich and the poor. It's not working here. I read things from Central and South America; it doesn't work there.
"The neo-liberal agenda creates millionaires, but basically takes away from the lowest income and most vulnerable people in every country. There has to be some sort of levelling and redistribution so that everybody tends to live, but I don't think we have the political will in Canada, even among the populace, to make it happen."
[Photo caption: PROTESTERS HOLD A candlelight vigil outside local Liberal MP John Bryden's office in honour of more than 40 homeless people who have died on the streets in recent years. The vigil was held to show support for calls for the federal government to boost spending on social housing.]
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National Housing Strategy Day of Action
Hamilton ON, November 22, 2000
Today at noon Santa and 20 or so elves who are also supporters of Hamilton Action for Social Change, Homes Not Bombs, and Christian Peacemaker Teams, visited Hamilton West Liberal MP Stan Keyes' campaign office on James St. S., Hamilton.
The group invited the Canadian government to "give the gift of affordable housing" to the 1.3 million Canadian children and their families living in poverty.
MP Stan came out of his office when he spotted the ONTV camera and made a speech extolling all of the goodies his party had promised to the homeless and those in danger of losing their shelter. He promised that things would be better for the poor of Hamilton somewhere in the future, because Homeless Minister Claudette Bradshaw had interviewed homeless people two years ago.
Santa reminded MP Stan that we were there to promote the 1% solution, that 1% ($2 billion) of Canada's GDP be spent to eliminate poverty by providing affordable housing as Canada's MP's pledged to do more than a decade ago. Santa also said that this small group was there in solidarity with the National Housing Strategy Day of Action taking place across Canada today.
Santa and his elves presented MP Keyes with a cardboard replica of an apartment building along with some readings from the UN's Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantee housing as a human right.
The group quoted Martin Luther King Jr., who said that "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on the military than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
They then pointed out to the MP that in the fiscal year 2000-2001 Canada will spend $11.2 billion on war, and zero dollars on new affordable housing construction to address the national crisis of homelessness.
Canada annually spends over $80 million enforcing sanctions which have killed over a million Iraqis. That money could have provided for over 2,000 affordable housing units.
Mr Keyes was presented with the cardboard affordable housing unit and these words:
"In order to remind Mr Keyes that his government must radically alter priorities, we present you with this gift, a model of decent affordable housing so desperately needed to save the spiritual soul of Canada. We vow to see that whoever is elected will not avoid their responsibility to ensure affordable housing for all. We intend to hold the government accountable. Happy Holidays!"
The group ended the visit by singing the hymn "Amazing Grace" with lyrics by poet Allen Ginsberg, words that referred to homelessness and its alleviation [lyrics reprinted below]
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AMAZING GRACE
I dreamed I dwelled in a homeless place
Where I was lost alone
Folk look right through me into space
And passed with eyes of stoneO homeless hand on many a street
Accept this change from me
A friendly smile or word is sweet
As fearless charityWoe working[folk] who hear the cry
And will not spare a dime
Nor look into a homeless eye
Afraid to give the time
So rich or poor no gold to talk
A smile on your face
The homeless ones where you may walk
Receive amazing grace
[repeat first stanza]
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Some Hamilton specific stats on a cold November day:
*Community Action Plan on Homelessness in Hamilton-Wentworth (reported in the Globe and Mail October 9, 2000) Social Planning and Research Council-Hamilton.
- Homelessness is a "major crisis" in Hamilton-Wentworth Region.*
- Emergency shelter use has jumped 35 per cent in less than two years while regional food banks are "scrambling" to provide food.*
- More than 4,000 families are on waiting lists for not-for-profit housing.*
- Soup kitchens and vans served 19,000 meals and food banks gave food to 11,000 people during March 1999.*
- Many families run out of food by the 22nd of every month.*
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h o u s e p a r t y for the 1% solution to homelessness
Pull up a couch, have some soup and dance for a solution to homelessness
Wednesday March 27,2002, 5:45 -9:00 pm
HAMILTON CITY HALLHOMES NOT BOMBS - HAMILTON is hosting a party for affordable housing and the 1% solution to homelessness in front of city hall. There will be music, food, art and dancing as we dare Hamilton Council to do the right thing and spend one percent of their budget to build affordable, rent-geared- to-income housing.
SPEAKERS: PERFORMERS:
- AL LOFT: Indigenous Community "Restoring the Connection"
- CRAIG FOYE: co-author of "The Community Action Plan on Homelessness in Hamilton-Wentworth"
- SUZANNE BROWN: Social Planning and Research Council
ART: "RESTORING THE CONNECTION" -AL LOFT/NATIVE INDIAN AND INUIT PHOTOGRAPHERS ASSOCIATION
- EKLEKTIC
- MIKE BARBER EXPERIENCE
- MUSA MINSTRELS (McMaster University Staff Association "Choir")
- STEVE FULLER
- GEORGE HOGAN
- STEVE SINNICKS
The end of the national disaster and national disgrace of homelessness starts at home!
Homelessness is caused by incomes that are too low and housing that is not affordable. Some stats on homelessness in Hamilton:
Click here for Housing Issues Backgrounder
- People using emergency shelters on any given night-March 2000: ~175 people, March 2001: ~260 people.
- As of the end of January 2002, there were more than 3900 people waiting to gain access to social housing. Depending on where in the city you wish to live, the wait can be anywhere from a year to 4 or 5 years.
- A single person on welfare does not even have enough income to afford average vacant market rent in a one-bedroom apartment and the government-calculated nutritious food basket every month.
- A family of four living on a single, full-time, minimum wage job can cover average food and rent, and has $37 per month left over to cover everything else.
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HOUSE PARTY: OPENING DOORS FOR ACTION ON HOMELESSNESS
A festive gathering in front of Hamilton City Hall ushered in a renewed call for action on homelessness in Hamilton.
Free vegan food, a photo art installation on homelessness, speeches, couches and lots of music made the cool spring night air buzz with hope as over 70 citizens gathered to draw attention to the 1% solution to homelessness.
Organizers called the HOUSE PARTY for the 1% SOLUTION TO HOMELESSNESS to focus energy around achievable goals to end the homelessness crisis.
That the Feds are positively brilliant in their spin on social issues while they do next to nothing to help, and that the province is utterly criminal in its cutting of social services is no excuse for the city to stand by and throw up its hands. This was the message Hamilton Action for Social Change took to city council on March 27 when demanding Hamilton implement its share of the 1% housing solution.
The 1% solution would have each level of government contribute 1% of existing budgets to building and maintaining affordable housing, creating a pot of some $2 billion annually, an amount capable of all but eradicating homelessness in 5 years. In Hamilton it would mean an estimated $2 million could be accessed to deal with an ongoing - and deepening - homelessness crisis in the city.
A presentation was made to the city's hearings subcommittee during the day where council members were each presented with a desk ornament: a block of wood punctured with a single nail to serve as a symbolic reminder of a simple but urgent community need: the need to build rent-geared-to-income housing, now.
That evening partyers shivered and jived to beat poetry and home-grown Hamilton folk and labour songs courtesy of performers Steve Sinnicks, Steve Fuller, George Hogan, the Mike Barber Experience, the MUSA (McMaster University Staff Association) Minstrels and Eklektic.
The sounds from the House Party's activist gathering could be heard in council chambers just above the stage where councillors met to consider matters of this year's budget.
People relaxed in reclaimed chairs, couches and other furniture that lined a walkway to the steps of city hall; Native and Inuit Photography Association artist Al Loft displayed his "Restoring the Connection," a circular installation of a photographic display on homelessness in Hamilton. Al also opened and closed the evening with native ceremony.
Local animal rights group CAGED supplied hot and yummy vegan food to all, as co-authors of "The Community Action Plan on Homelessness in Hamilton-Wentworth" Craig Foye and Suzanne Brown detailed dire situations in housing and poverty in Hamilton, while praising public gatherings designed to apply pressure on officials to act.
There have been more than enough studies. The jury is in, and its time for a campaign for affordable housing in Hamilton.
You can reach your city councillor at 905.546.2730
Housing is a Human Right: get involved in the struggle for human rights in Hamilton!
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Anti-poverty group demands action on area homelessness
By KEVIN WERNER
Ancaster News, April 3, 2002The Hamilton Action For Social Change is asking all levels of government to spend one extra per cent of their budgets to build affordable housing for the thousands of people waiting for a place to live.
"There is a crisis in affordable housing. (Councillors) have to justify allowing people (in Hamilton) to live in poverty," said Randy Kay of the Hamilton Action For Social Change, "while funding other projects like the Red Hill Creek Expressway."
Mr. Kay, along with about 70 people, staged a musical and artistic protest on Hamilton city hall's forecourt during councillors March 27 meeting. Earlier in the day Mr. Kay and David Jefferess formally asked councillors to consider their request to spend the extra one percent.
"I would hope council will hear these views," said Hamilton downtown councillor Andrea Horwath, an outspoken proponent of building more affordable housing in the city.
Added Hamilton mountain councillor Bill Kelly: "We do have a crisis in housing. Municipalities have a responsibility but we can't do it alone. It has to be done in cooperation with the provincial and federal governments."
In March 2000, about 175 people used emergency shelters every night, By 2001 there was 260 people using the shelters.
At the end of January 2002, there were 3,900 people on the waiting list for social housing, with people waiting up to five years for a place to live.
Hamilton's Housing Help Centre has found rents for one and three bedroom units have increased fiver per cent from October 2000, while two bedroom units are up slightly.
Mr. Kay acknowledges the blame for the lack of social housing in the city also rests on provincial and federal governments' shoulders. The coalition is also asking both governments spend an additional one per cent of their budgets on the problem.
"Canada is the only industrial country that doesn't have a housing policy," said Mr. Kay. "But we want (Hamilton) to do its part."
During the three-hour protest, musicians from McMaster University, The Mike Barber Experience and Tom Wilson (sic) performed for the appreciative crowd; a light show was highlighted on the concrete facade of the walkway across the street; and there was a gallery of photos by Al Loft, of the Native Indian and Inuit Photographers Association on the homeless. As speakers talked about the governments' lack of resolve to help the homeless, people crowded around the steps of city hall among abandoned couches, chairs and a television set.
The coalition is also asking the provincial government to increase the minimum wage to eight percent; reverse the 22 per cent cuts to welfare that were made in 1995 and restore rent control legislation.
"Hopefully (the protest) is the start of a campaign," said Mr. Kay.
City urged to act on growing shortage of low-income housing
By ERIC McGUINNESS
The Hamilton Spectator (Monday April 1, 2002)Affordable-housing advocates suggest the city spend 1 per cent of its yearly capital budget to build rent-geared-to-income dwellings.
At present spending, that would produce less than $2 million a year.
The so-called "1% solution" is proposed by the Solutions Hamilton Housing Committee and Hamilton Action for Social Change, whose representatives recently pitched the idea to council's hearings subcommittee.
They say more people are being squeezed toward homelessness by poverty and rent increases while the number of affordable rental housing units decreases.
Their call for city action comes as council awaits a staff report on affordable housing and the Social Planning and Research Council gets ready to issue a report card on homelessness this week.
Councillor Andrea Horwath said that construction is only part of the equation, because once the housing is built, more money is needed to make up the difference between operating costs and what tenants can afford to pay.
Horwath argued the federal and provincial governments have a role to play, because income redistribution should be based on income taxes, not the regressive property tax on which municipalities must rely.
Councillor Sam Merulla said Hamilton's Vision 2020 goal of a sustainable community requires that the needs of low-income citizens be addressed as urgently as the need for economic development. He suggested taking $37 million expected from Hamilton Hydro and a $3 million GO transit windfall to create a fund to help the poor.
Horwath said: "People in need are overlooked when we deal with mega-projects like expressways. Maybe people can live under it (the proposed Red Hill Creek Expressway)."
She called it a crime that the new city doesn't have a social housing policy a year after amalgamation.
Tom Cooper of Solutions for Housing, a community development co-ordinator for McQuesten Legal Services, said the problem is that "governments at all levels have washed their hands of low-income housing," starting with the federal government in 1993, then the province in 1995.
As a result, no new rental housing is being built, the existing stock is aging, there is a waiting list of almost 4,000 individuals and families for subsidized housing and city staff say there is a need for at least 770 new units a year through to 2021.
Cooper said tenants are considered to have an affordability problem when they spend more than 30 per cent of their household income on rent, but that's happening to 31,000 or 47 per cent of Hamilton's 66,230 tenant households.
Seventeen thousand households - individuals or families - pay more than 50 per cent of their income for a place to live.
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More on poverty issues:
- http://www.hwcn.org/link/hasc/zero.htm
- Homes Not Bombs Network
- Background Information on Housing and Homelessness
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Hamilton Action for Social Change
ROOT URL:http://www.hwcn.org/link/hasc/index.html