Housing recommendations ‘extremely important,’ advocates say

Housing advocates are calling the changes proposed in a report from a committee of regular MLAs “transformative.”

The chief recommendation of the report, which was tabled in the legislature last month by Monfwi MLA Jane Weyallon Armstrong, urges the Government of the Northwest Territories to urgently create new legislation that would recognize adequate housing as a human right.

“We see every day how the lack of safe, affordable, and culturally appropriate housing keeps people – especially Indigenous women and gender-diverse individuals – trapped in cycles of homelessness and trauma,” wrote Arlene Haché,
interim executive director of the Yellowknife Women’s Society, in an email to Cabin Radio.

“The report acknowledges this and calls for action that matches the scale of the crisis.”

MLAs who form the Standing Committee on Social Development issued 43 other recommendations in the report to help improve the state of housing across the territory, and to align with international human rights principles.

The recommendations included introducing 24-hour shelters in Yellowknife and in other communities across the territory, greater collaboration with Indigenous governments, the modernization of the Residential Tenancies Act, appointing an independent Territorial Housing Advocate, and making more transitional housing and supported living options available for people who have been evicted from public housing.

In a press release about the report, the Yellowknife Women’s Society, which runs housing and shelter programs, wrote that investment in transitional and supportive housing will “save lives and reduce pressure on emergency systems.”

Tony Brushett – executive director of the Salvation Army, which runs an emergency men’s shelter and transitional housing programs in Yellowknife – described some of the recommendations made in the report as “extremely important.”

With the funding currently available, Brushett described shelter and housing programs as reactive. Adopting some of these suggestions and making housing a human right across the territory would allow the Salvation Army and similar organizations to plan beyond the immediate needs of the community, he said, and allow for the programs offered to service users to be more dignified.

He’d like to see the amendment of the Residential Tenancies Act prioritized, as well more options for people evicted from public housing.

“A lot of these folks are getting evicted and they look around: there’s nowhere to go. So they end up in the shelters or they end up in the encampments,” said Brushett.

Included in the report was a recommendation for the GNWT to create 24-hour shelters in Yellowknife and other NWT communities, something for which Brushett has long advocated in the territory’s capital.

He said the Salvation Army operates 24-hour shelters in many other jurisdictions across the country. To his knowledge, the Yellowknife shelter is the only one open for 12 hours a day.

Before coming to Yellowknife, Brushett worked for eight years at a 24-hour shelter in Ottawa, which he said included communal areas where people could stay during the day.

“But while they’re staying there, we strategically always have placed housing workers, mental health workers, addictions workers, so there’s staff talking to you throughout the day. Quite often, they’re able to form a relationship and start the work to moving you out of the shelter system.”

He said more than half of the people staying in shelters could – with the right supports – move into more stable housing, either into transitional housing or living on their own.

“With a 24-hour shelter, not only are you keeping some folks off the street where a lot of our neighbours are complaining, but you’re keeping them close to professional staff who may be able to help them take that next step that they can’t figure out on their own,” said Brushett.

“And that’s a proven method across the country.”

He said the Salvation Army wouldn’t be able to open a 24-hour shelter in its current building, but it could be feasible in another location.

“It would not take a whole lot for us to be able to make this happen,” said Brushett.

He said while some of the MLAs’ recommendations require investment from the territorial government, they allow for savings in other areas, such as in emergency response to situations made worse due to conditions of chronic homelessness.

“If the GNWT was able to advance all, or most of these recommendations, I feel like, a year later, we would see a different outcome in the shelter system,” said Brushett.

Filling gaps in the continuum

Yellowknife North MLA Shauna Morgan, who sits on the social development committee, said people experiencing homelessness must have ways of moving through the housing continuum for the right to housing to be meaningful.

The continuum moves from homelessness to living in a shelter, transitional housing, supportive housing, public housing, affordable housing and market housing.

The report acknowledged, though, that many communities in the NWT are considered to be non-market, meaning there aren’t many options beyond public housing and inherited homeownership.

“We need all of those options and all of the parts of the housing continuum filled in before we can ensure everyone is adequately housed in the territory,” said Morgan.

While she doesn’t expect every type of housing in a small non-market community, she said gaps need to be filled when it comes to transitional housing and community-supported homeownership.

Speaking in the territorial legislature late last month, Range Lake MLA and committee member Kieron Testart, said recognizing housing as a human right “underpins the very essence of this report.”

“When we looked at mechanisms to enshrine housing as a human right – or officially recognize – that was a bit of a complicated task,” said Testart, “because even the federal government has legislation that acknowledges it as a human right but stops short of actually enshrining it in human rights legislation.”

He said the recommendation is broad enough to allow the territory to take meaningful action toward improving housing systems, “but not in such a way that creates a kind-of paralysis across the government.”

The report suggests having a Territorial Housing Advocate “investigate how human rights and advocacy organizations can pursue legal remedies for violations of the right to housing through legal or policy frameworks.”

Morgan said it would then be part of the advocate’s role to ensure the legal framework is applied appropriately, which could be modelled after the federal government’s National Housing Strategy Act.

She said while the report focuses on people’s rights to housing, there also need to be “parallel responsibilities” held by those accessing housing.

“The committee did delve into that tension and tried to make recommendations as well regarding how can people be held accountable, while having the right to housing, to act responsibly and to respect their neighbours and to take good care of that home,” Morgan explained.

The GNWT has 120 days from the report’s tabling to respond.

“My hope is there will be some concrete commitments in the response that will mean action is taken, hopefully during the life of this assembly,” said Morgan.

“As a committee, we’re not asking for all housing problems to be solved within two years, but we’re looking for commitments to move in a certain direction.”