A Roof Over Their Heads: The Right to Housing

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Esther Mendelsohn
Societies are judged by the manner in which they treat their most vulnerable. How will ours be judged?

Societies are judged by the manner in which they treat their most vulnerable. How will ours be judged?

Over the course of less than one week in January, two homeless men died out in the cold. They died because they were exposed to the elements with no place to go, not in a far-flung developing nation, but here in Toronto.

In an epoch when nearly everyone has a phone that can count steps walked, recommend nearby restaurants, and talk to its owner, it is unconscionable that anywhere between 250,000 and 350,000 people sleep on the streets of this country every night.

It is too easy to disavow any similarity between those people and ourselves. Surely, they did something to end up homeless. They most likely chose to be out on the street. They’re all drunks, drug addicts, mentally ill, gamblers, lazy, or otherwise undesirable. Or so we tell ourselves. Toronto Life published the story of a formerly homeless youth. Raised in one of the city’s most affluent neighbourhoods, she was bullied in school and turned to the wrong crowd—and the drugs they offered her—in order to escape. She was kicked out of her home and wound up on the street, working in the sex trade, addicted to drugs, desperate, and alone. It can happen to anyone.

People lose their jobs, become critically ill and unable to work, go through acrimonious divorces, suffer from addiction or mental illness, or escape abuse, and end up on the street. No one chooses this life; the choice between constantly being beaten and living on the street is not a meaningful one.

Once there, they are often subjected to further abuse and threats to their safety and bodily integrity. The streets are cold and surviving is no simple task.

If they’re lucky we’ll throw (quite literally) some spare change into their cups, or buy them coffees because we don’t want our money going to drugs or alcohol. More often than not, though, we simply glide by, talking on our phones, laughing with friends, listening to music, carrying on with our lives.

If we do decide to spare some change, we carefully select the recipients of our magnanimity, as though we are the arbiters of who is deserving of our hard-earned money. I submit to you that anyone on the street is deserving of our compassion and help and should not be made to feel humiliated.

While ignoring the plight of the homeless has been a mark of shame, the most outrageous part of how our society deals with homelessness, however, may just be the criminalization of it. The Safe Streets Act was enacted in 1999 as a response to the supposed nuisance caused by “squeegee kids.”

Under the act, homeless people sleeping on the street can be issued fines, none of which they can pay, of course. Accruing enough unpaid tickets could land someone in jail. The tickets are meant to push homeless people off the streets—no doubt in an effort to further gentrify and beautify the city—but where can they possibly be expected to go?

The Supreme Court has recognized commercial expression as a right when the party seeking to enforce that right has been a large corporation, but squeegee kids soliciting windshield washing services do not have the same right.

I was a kid when squeegee kids could be seen on street corners waiting for cars to stop. When I debated with some of the adults in my life the merits of allowing these mostly homeless teens to offer their services squeegeeing the windshields of cars at red lights in exchange for whatever coins the drivers had lying around, I was patted on the head and told that when I grow up and understand the issues, I will change my mind.

Well, I have grown up and I now have a deeper understanding of the issues but I have definitely not changed my mind. If anything, I am more convinced than ever of the injustice of this law. One of its original proponents, former Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant, has now called for its repeal. My ten-year-old self feels vindicated knowing that a child had a better grasp on reality and justice than all those condescending, head-patting adults.

Today, politicians are finally taking note of the problem. Toronto Mayor John Tory should be commended for eschewing exactitudes and protocols, and instead opening up more shelter beds on the coldest winter nights. But shelters are not permanent homes, and they are not permanent solutions.

The Ontario government has committed itself to addressing homelessness, particularly youth homeless, in the province. It is laudable that many of the policies are aimed at preventing homelessness, but we must also tend to those currently on the street. Ontarians must also hold the government’s feet to the fire and insist that it follow through with these measures.

The South African Constitution includes the right to housing. Though the results have been a mixed bag, it has been an important first step.

In what can be described as a missed opportunity, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled against the right to housing, which would have created corollary positive obligations on the part of the government to enact legislation addressing the issue of housing, as it did in South Africa.

As with many other social ills, homelessness costs more than its eradication. It costs the taxpayer up to $120, 000 per homeless person per year for institutional responses, as opposed to as little as $18,000 for affordable housing. But even if the balance sheet indicated the reverse, I suggest that it is immoral not to address the crisis, regardless of the cost.

As future lawyers, we must consider how we can shape and advance the law. While the court may not have recognized Charter breaches in this round, we should work in the spirit of Charter values and insist that security of the person be a guiding principle for legislation and policy pertaining to homelessness.

Creating more affordable housing, instead of flashy expensive condos, and allowing parents to have their children of a different gender stay with them in shelters are some changes we as future lawyers should be advocating for.

Humanitarian crises like the recent Ebola outbreak cast the eyes of the world on the abject poverty in which so many across the globe live. For many, it threw into sharp relief the privilege in which we live and which seems to never quite suffice. Considering the staggering numbers—which become even more shocking in Aboriginal communities—how will our society be judged?

About the author

Esther Mendelsohn

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