Next summer will mark the five-year anniversary of housing being a federally legislated human right in Canada, but municipal and provincial political leaders say there's no easy option to implement that right through local policy.
The federal legislation, the National Housing Strategy Act, declared in 2019 the “right to adequate housing is a fundamental human right,” and “housing is essential to the inherent dignity and well-being of the person.”
The Act also required the federal housing minister to develop a national housing strategy.
Speaking at a recent housing conference hosted by the Edmonton Metropolitan Region Board, the University of Alberta's Affordable Housing Solutions Lab research lead, Dr. Joshua Evans, told a crowd of regional political leaders and industry representatives governments have a responsibility to ensure people's rights to housing are being fulfilled. But, he said, it's uncertain how lower levels of government can follow through on that responsibility, especially on a municipal level.
“At the federal level there's mechanisms that have been created to see that through, and the uncertainty is how that's translating down to a provincial and municipal government, and that's something that's being worked through and thought through and struggled over today,” Evans said, adding one option might be to create a housing advocate office at the local level.
St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron said a framework for housing is hard to create on just a local level.
“The biggest problem has been the confusion over jurisdiction over housing,” she said. “My honest belief is all three levels [of government] have to play a role, and there are many municipalities that don't think they should be subsidized housing ... but I think municipalities have to play a role in the subsidized [housing] market. That's why St. Albert donated the land for 22 St. Thomas Street.”
"I feel like [housing as a human right is] more of a philosophy than a policy, so you have to have strong leaders in mayor and council chairs that truly believe it.”
Alberta Seniors, Community and Social Services Minister Jason Nixon also attended the Nov. 2 conference.
After a speech in which Nixon touted the UCP government's recent affordable housing builds, including an 83-unit complex in Fort Saskatchewan that opened last month, Nixon said he thinks the province's responsibility for following through on housing being a human right is simply to create more homes.
“If we are serious about making sure that every Albertan, every Canadian, has a roof over their head, we have to build it,” he said. “How cities debate that going forward, I think needs to be focused on making sure they just continue to remove barriers to make sure that homes are built, and that's what you see taking place in Edmonton, Calgary and all across the province.”
“The premier and I have been both very clear that if municipalities do not respond to their end of making sure that we can build homes, which on their end is primarily regulatory bylaws and zoning, if they don't respond to that ... we will be tying funding not just to housing, but to other infrastructure projects that the cities need,” Nixon said.
“We have to build housing. We cannot allow our cities to fall hundreds of thousands of homes behind, for obvious reasons.”
