Crowd rallies to demand action on housing crisis
People gathered to rally in support of housing as a human right in the midst of Canada’s ongoing housing crisis outside of city hall on Friday.
Across Ontario, several rallies were organized by Legal Aid to address the current situation.
About 75 people gathered in Thunder Bay to hear about half a dozen speakers, the crowd varying in age from teens to seniors. People held signs reading, ‘Homelessness is Solvable,’ ‘Affordable Housing NOW!’ and ‘Average 1 Bed $1,509.’
“Without housing, all aspects of your life deteriorate,” said Sarah Racine, housing systems navigator at Kinna-aweya Legal Clinic, at the local event on Friday.
“Our health deteriorates, our mental health deteriorates; we can’t hold jobs — we need stable, safe housing to, you know, keep everything together.”
“Housing is a human right because it goes to the core of everyone’s basic needs,” added her colleague, Caycie Soke, a staff lawyer at Kinna-aweya. “People can’t be healthy; people can’t send their kids to school, can’t put food on the table if they don’t have a table, if they don’t have a place to rest.”
“There’s not enough [housing] available for people to have an affordable place to live,” she said.
Racine added the biggest issue is the gap between social-assistance income, basic wages and the cost of living.
“Rent is skyrocketing. The demand and the supply is just so vastly different. We don’t have enough stock, and we just have more and more people coming to the city,” she said.
Racine advocates for an increase in available housing.
“Yes, we can increase wages and income support, but we can also support infrastructure in a better way, I believe, to make it easier for people to build properties, agencies to do more subsidies to make more transitional units. We need to push the government more to support us in those aspects.”
Among the speakers on Friday was Matthew Jollineau, also with Kinna-aweya clinic. He asked the crowd if the governments truly understand the scope of the housing crisis.
“They say they’re doing as much as they possibly can. But is it enough? When they don’t understand how horrific this housing crisis is for real people, they’re not going to do enough quickly enough,” he said.
In his speech, Jollineau shared an idea about how to push the government more.
“When they don’t understand, in some sense, the dread that plagues people who can’t make the rent, they’re not going to do enough to keep rents down. So, it’s up to us — all of us who understand this issue. Please, speak up. Continue to speak up … to your city council … your MPPs and MPs. Because when we let them know what is a stake then finally, maybe, they’ll do enough and we will see some results.”- tbnewswatch.com
article website here
A couple of questions:
- If Housing is a human right, then why are there people that are paying for housing?
- Why work , if by not working, you get your housing for free?
- Why is there not hundreds if not thousands of houses/apartment complexes being built here every year? (Does it have something to do with scarcity keeping prices inflated? Inflated prices provides the City of Thunder Bay more tax dollars? Is there not a conflict of interest here? Governments make money off of high priced property)
Maybe everyone should be assigned housing as soon as they turn 18. When you are born, you are put on a housing list that will match you up with free accommodations 18 years later.
Housing is a human right. Foo is a human right. My understanding of the situation is that the only people required to work are the people building the housing and the people producing the food. Everyone else can sit back and enjoy the fruits of THEIR labour.
How all of this social generosity will be paid for, is a question that nobody is asking.
Just print more money. This causes inflation which raises prices which requires more money printing. Its a Stairway To Heaven.
PS: The people at the rally could adopt an ‘unhoused/addict/mentally ill’ person. Bring them into THEIR home. Feed them. Cloth them. Tale care of them. They could do that.
PSS: Take the profit incentive out of the housing market. Reduce or eliminate taxes on housing construction. Instead of using property value, find another system of calculating property taxes. Maybe lot size.