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363The
Front Line Defence: Housing and Human Rights in the Time of COVID-19
pandemic. Most critically, it has illuminated the ways IPV is directly
linked to the housing crisis that Canada has failed to address for
decades. These realities demonstrate the urgent need for a gendered
analysis of housing policy in Canada and a need to ensure the right to
housing is actualized for women and their children.
Low-Income Renters
The Canadian housing system is characterized by a severe lack of
affordable housing. Since the over-emphasis on a market-driven
housing system from the mid-1980s onward, Canadian governments
have overseen massive decreases in social housing stock, weaker ten-
ant protections, and huge increases in housing need and homeless-
ness.25 More broadly, Canadian cities are increasingly shaped by the
“financialization of housing,” characterized by the expanded role and
unprecedented dominance of financial markets and corporations in
the housing sector.26
The pandemic has further exacerbated the pre-existing housing
challenges faced by those living on low incomes. Low-income renters
are more likely to be working low-paying service jobs, and national
data indicates since the emergence of COVID-19, half of those making
under $16 an hour in Canada have either lost their jobs or a majority of
their hours since February 2020.27 Just two months into the pandemic,
national data indicated that one in three Canadians feared they would
miss rent or mortgage payments.28
To date, Canadian governments have provided limited rent relief
during the pandemic. Instead, they have focused on replacing income,
but in light of the pre-pandemic housing affordability issues, an
income-only approach is proving insufficient. Recognizing the wide-
spread employment challenges faced during the pandemic, a majority
of Canadian provinces and territories have adopted moratoriums on
25. John R Graham, Karen Swift & Roger Delaney, Canadian Social Policy: An Intro-
duction, 4th ed, (Toronto: Pearson Canada, 2012).
26. Report of the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing as a Component of the Right toÂ
anÂ
AequateÂ
StandardÂ
ofÂ
Living,Â
andÂ
onÂ
theÂ
RightÂ
toÂ
Non-DiscriminationÂ
inÂ
thisÂ
Context,
UNHRC, 34th Sess, Annexe, Agenda Item 3, UN Doc A/HRC/34/51 (2017).
27. David Macdonald, “Early Warning: Who’s Bearing the Brunt of COVID19’s
Labour Market Impacts?” (9 April 2020), online: Behind the Numbers <behindthe-
numbers.ca/2020/04/09/early-warning-covid19-labour-market-impacts/>.
28. “State of Renters During COVID-19: Survey Report” (2020), online: Acorn Canada
<acorncanada.org/resource/state-renters-during-covid-19-survey-report>.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Titel
- VULNERABLE
- Untertitel
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Autoren
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Verlag
- Ottawa Press
- Datum
- 2020
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Abmessungen
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Seiten
- 648
- Kategorien
- Coronavirus
- International