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Today,
widespread homelessness in Canada is recognized as a national disaster
that is both urban and rural and which most dramatically affects
women. Despite this, programs and responses to homelessness still
tend to ignore women’s experiences. "Women and Housing in Canada:
Barriers to Equality", a national report, responds to this omission
and offers a unique contribution to current discussions on the homelessness
crisis in Canada. The report discusses federal government programs
and policies from the standpoint of the particular barriers facing
low income women in meeting their housing needs. The report situates
women’s homelessness within the context of women’s poverty and it
thus assesses not only programs and policies related to housing,
but also those related to income support. Specifically, the report
focuses on the following issues:
- The federal
government’s withdrawal of funding for new social housing
and the restructuring and downloading of federal housing programs;
- Discriminatory
barriers in federal mortgage insurance and home ownership programs;
- Aboriginal
women’s housing needs;
- The loss
of entitlements to adequate social assistance to cover the cost
of housing under the Canada Health and Social Transfer and the
Social Union Framework Agreement;
- The claw
back of the National Child Benefit Supplement from social assistance
recipients – predominantly single mothers;
- Changes to
the unemployment insurance scheme that place women at risk of
homelessness.
The report offers
recommendations and presents innovative strategies through which
the federal government could respond to the growing crisis of women’s
homelessness in Canada.
Women and Housing
in Canada: Barriers to Equality is available in french and english
on CERA’s website: www.equalityrights.org/cera/
For a hard copy
or more information contact:
Leilani Farha,
Women’s Programme Manager
leilani@equalityrights.org
519.252.9301 or 1.800.263.1139 Ext. 26 (toll free)
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This
page was updated in March 26, 2002
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