Canadian law doesn’t recognize adequate housing as an enforceable right or a policy commitment by government.

Canada is also one of a few countries in the world that don’t have a national housing strategy.

While there may be at least 150,000 Canadians living on the streets, the country doesn’t have an official definition of homelessness.

These disturbing points are raised by Miloon Kothari, the United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing, in a new report that will be the focus of world attention next week.

On Monday (March 9), Kothari’s report on Canada will be tabled at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, according to the Toronto-based Wellesley Institute.

Kothari travelled across Canada from October 9 to 22, 2007.

His visit focused on four areas: homelessness; women and their right to adequate housing; aboriginal populations; adequate housing and the possible impact of the 2010 Olympic Games on the right to adequate housing in Vancouver.

Kothari walked through Vancouver’s impoverished Downtown Eastside in the early morning of October 16, 2007, and he told the Straight at that time that what he saw and heard was “very disturbing”.

In his report to the Human Rights Council, dated February 17, Kothari notes that adequate housing as a right is not found in the Constitution Act of 1982, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; in provincial or federal human-rights legislation; in national, provincial, or territorial housing legislation; or in federal-provincial agreements.

As such, the right to adequate housing as described in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights “cannot be claimed on its own”.

“Given the absence of explicit provisions in Canadian law guaranteeing the right to adequate housing, the interpretation of the open-ended provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is critical for giving domestic effect to this right in Canada,” Kothari states in his report.

“Denial of the right to adequate housing to marginalized, disadvantaged groups in Canada clearly assaults fundamental rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, even if the Charter does not explicitly refer to the right to adequate housing,” the UN rapporteur adds.

Kothari notes that experts have described Canada’s funding strategy to housing as a “fraying patchwork” in the absence of a national housing strategy.

He points to the high cost of failing to take action on homelessness.

“For instance, it is estimated that it costs taxpayers more than $50,000 per year to support each homeless resident in British Columbia and $4.5 and $6 billion annually for an estimated 150,000 homeless in Canada,” Kothari wrote.

The UN rapporteur expressed concern over reports that homeless people are getting ticketed and their possessions seized in the lead up to the 2010 Olympics.

Kothari’s report includes the following recommendations:

”¢ “Therefore, the Special Rapporteur strongly recommends that the right to adequate housing be recognized in federal and provincial legislations as an inherent part of the Canadian legal system.”

”¢ “The Special Rapporteur calls for Canada to adopt a comprehensive and coordinated national housing policy based on indivisibility of human rights and the protection of the most vulnerable.”

”¢ “The Special Rapporteur urges the federal authorities to adopt an official definition of homelessness and to gather reliable statistics in order to develop a coherent and concerted approach to this issue.”

”¢ “In view of the issues faced by women in regard to discrimination and inadequate living conditions as well as income disparity between men and women, the Special Rapporteur recommends that the mandate and funding of the Status of Women Canada (SWC) be fully reinstated including funding for advocacy for women’s equality.”

”¢ “Vancouver Olympic officials, and other authorities, need to implement specific strategies on housing and homelessness that do not rely on criminalization of poverty, and to commit funding and resources to support their targets, including the construction of 3,200 affordable homes as set out by the City of Vancouver as its minimum requirement for social sustainability and echoed in community Olympic consultation processes.”