Housing and food are very linked because they are both basic needs household expenditures. The lowest income quintile spends over half their expenditures on necessities (1/3 on shelter, 15% on food), while the highest spends less than 30% (less than 1/5 on shelter, about 8% on food) Shahid, S. 2021. Low - income Canadian households will suffer the most from soaring inflation, G&M Sept. 17, A13.
Both right to food and right to housing are embedded in UN declarations and conventions. Housing strategy released in 2017. Outside actors drafted the Act but only parts of it were adopted. 2019 Right to Housing Strategy Act adopted by the federal government. Way less interested in right to food.
Key question is how to integrate housing and food initiatives. Complicated by the very difficult housing situation across the country. Obviously many of the proposals that focus on reducing the price of and access to housing can potentially reduce food insecurity. Much focus is now on changing land use and zoning in municipalities to permit mid-rise buildings in areas dominated by singe family and detached dwellings
Provinces not directly affected by Right to Housing Act. But agreements which each province under Housing strategy. Doesn't really guarantee right to housing however.
Rental Construction Financing Initiative. Significant questions about whether it is really producing housing with affordable rents.
Rapid Housing Initiative. Used by cities to buy housing or buy modular housing units. $2.5 billion, started fall 2020.
National Housing co-investment fund
Federal Lands Initiative
These programs aren't meeting their targets.
Provinces and feds often subsidize rents for low income people
although many federal promises around housing, constitutional authority is somewhat limited to some housing financing rules, monetary policy and project funding. CMHC often at centre. Provinces responsible for land use, and much of that devolves to municipal land use decision making for specific projects and zoning. Federal funding often in loans to developers (can save them alot of money compared to conventional financing) which can't proceed without local approval. Many projects held up at the municipal level. Maintenance often an issue with social housing, which takes housing out of use. (Bula, F. 2021. Despite election pledges, federal parties hae limited power to boost housing. G&M Sept. 13)
In multi-unit dwellings,, how can food be integrated? food co-ops, community kitchens, food box programs, low cost retail, food carts/trucks
Stansbury, T. (2021). A Roof Over Our Stomachs: The Right to Housing in Canada and Its Implications for the Right to Food. Centre for Law & the Environment. Food Secure Canada, Peter A. Allard School of Law. https://allard.ubc.ca/sites/default/files/2021-07/2021%2003%20Stansbury%20Housing%20and%20Food_0.pdf
Pine, https://www.foodsystemsjournal.org/index.php/fsj/article/view/1085/1053
Tim Richter, Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-five-ways-that-canadian-governments-can-tackle-homelessness/
From: , , & (2023). 1845 or 2023? Friedrich Engels’s insights into the health effects of Victorian-era and contemporary Canadian capitalism. Sociology of Health & Illness, 1– 25.
"An estimated 235,000 Canadians are homeless each year (Gaetz et al., 2016) and an additional 800,000 at risk of homelessness (Norman & Reist, 2021). Compared to the general population, homeless people are more likely to die at a younger age (Bryant, 2016)." Gaetz, S., Dej, E., Richter, T., & Redman, M. (2016). The state of homelessness in Canada 2016. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press. Available at: https://homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/SOHC16_final_20Oct2016.pdf. Norman, T., & Reist, D. (2021). Homelessness, mental health and substance use. Available at: https://www.hereto-help.bc.ca/infosheet/homelessness-mental-health-and-substance-use#homelessness. Bryant, T. (2016). Housing and health. In D. Raphael (Ed.), Social determinants of health: Canadian perspectives(3rd ed., pp. 360–383). Canadian Scholars' Press
Federals historically a big funder of rental housing stock. "
CMHC’s original role after World War II was to initiate and build a lot of housing for returning veterans, and they followed the pattern of Great Britain, where the national government was involved in building council housing,” says Michael Geller, a developer and real estate consultant who worked at CMHC from 1972 to 1981. One of his last assignments was regeneration of older public housing projects. He will be giving a talk at SFU on Oct. 18 about planning and government’s role in housing.”It was the federal government that took the lead on public housing projects across Canada,” he says.
By the early 1990s, the federal government pulled financing from public housing projects, which, experts agree, is largely the reason that there’s a dearth of purpose-built rental stock available now. Little Mountain became a BC Housing project and got sold off to a developer. And for the past three decades, government tax policy shifted toward homeowners instead of renters." "The federal government has always played a central role delivering housing programs throughout history, says University of Toronto Prof. David Hulchanski, professor of housing and community development in the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. But even more crucial than those programs is their role in setting interest rates via the Bank of Canada, providing mortgage loan insurance, setting mortgage rules through the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, setting national economic policy, and establishing tax system advantages around housing as well as capital gains exemptions on principal residences, he says." Kerry Gold. 2023. The federal government can lead on housing. Globe and Mail, Aug. 26
