As a Canadian, you have basic human rights, as outlined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Unfortunately, affordable housing is not listed anywhere in this document. You, as a Canadian, have no right to a roof over your head.
This is not to say that no efforts have been made, however. In 2017, the National Housing Strategy was introduced, which aims to bring Canada up to an international standard, recognizing that, according to the United Nations, all people have the “right to live somewhere in security, peace and dignity.” While Ontario has set a strong precedent with its Policy on Human Rights and Rental Housing, which states that housing should be recognized as a basic right, every other province in Canada only states that people have the right to be free from discrimination when renting, which cleverly avoids actually committing to a right for housing.
Considering that a safe home is merely a privilege, it’s no surprise, then, that Canadians are being ravenously exploited for the exorbitant enrichment of landlords and housing corporations. We are being forced to pay thousands of dollars, in perpetuity, simply for the allowance of personal safety.
I am a person with a disability who lives on a fixed income of about $1,400 a month. I currently pay $800 for a small, mouldy one bedroom with crumbling walls and a persistent sewage overflow issue. In 2013, this price was considered reasonable. Now, it is impossible.
I recently found myself in a housing crisis, facing the possibility of having to move out with very little notice. When I looked into finding a new place, I was aghast to see how grossly the rental market has ballooned. Now you can barely get a bachelor pad for less than $1,400 a month, which is clearly impossible for myself and millions of other vulnerable people in Canada, including students and immigrants.
This is a total exploitation racket which seems to cavalierly aim to bolster the homeless population with low-income individuals, pricing them out of homes entirely. According to BC legislation, landlords are prohibited from raising the rent more than 1.5 percent in 2022, yet there is nothing stopping them from setting initial rental rates criminally high. If I move out of my apartment, it will get a quick wash and a paint job, and I’d bet it will be put on the market for no less than $1,500 a month.
Sure, subsidized housing exists, but the wait time is literally years, and even so, it results in marginalized people in poverty being crowded into low-budget apartment buildings, which carries its own litany of socioeconomic problems. Does the idea sound familiar? These are no more than government-approved slum stacks.
Canada needs to incorporate legislation that limits the cost of new rentals. It should also compel a higher standard of upkeep. (My apartment was built in the 1960s and still has its original single-pane windows, for example.)
Landlords and property managers are holding hostage our basic human right to safety, pocketing fat wads of cash and giving almost nothing back, showing that from a financial perspective, renting is a fool’s game, one that over 11 million Canadians have no choice but to play. Legislation has to change, before millions of vulnerable Canadians find themselves on the streets.