HOUSING IS A HUMAN RIGHT
The Committee is gravely concerned that such a wealthy country as Canada has allowed the problem of homelessness and inadequate housing to grow to such proportions that the mayors of Canada's ten largest cities have now declared homelessness a national disaster.
United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Ultimately, a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for the "least of these."
Martin Luther King Jr.
Z e r o % C i t y ?
INSIST THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TAKE ACTION ON HOMELESSNESS: SUPPORT THE 1% SOLUTION.
Homes not Bombs Hamilton invite you to attend ZERO CITY, a cardboard community set up to demonstrate that a government not willing to implement the 1% solution to homelessness is preparing the way for increased misery in our communities. ZERO CITY will set up in front of Liberal M.P. John Bryden's constituency office Wednesday afternoon (February 9, 2000) at 5:00 p.m.
ZERO CITY hopes to draw attention to the fact that a motion before the House of Parliament (M123), to be debated on Friday (February 11) at 1:30 p.m., is seen by many anti-poverty organizations as a desperately needed first step to addressing the serious crisis of lack of affordable housing.
"If the government doesn't seize this opportunity to address the lack of decent, affordable housing, they are dooming millions of people to a future of life on the streets, in places like Zero City. We need a 1% beginning, not a zero percent abandonment," says Homes Not Bombs spokesperson Gail Lorimer.
ZERO CITY will be constructed out of cardboard and found materials. Candlelight vigils will remind people that a lasting solution to homelessness needs the attention, and financial support of government. People are being encouraged to contact their MPs and ask them to support this motion.
Wentworth Burlington MP John Bryden's office is located at 2 King Street West in Dundas.
For More information about ZERO CITY please contact Gail Lorimer at (905) 634-7654
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NOTES FROM ZERO PERCENT CITY
Wednesday February 9, 2000.
"Homeless: Studied to Death; Social Housing Now!"
A cardboard city sprang up in minutes outside Liberal MP (Wentworth/Burlington) John Bryden's constituency office in Dundas, Ontario today.
ZERO CITY, a "cardboard community" was set up by Homes Not Bombs Hamilton activists to draw attention to government inaction on the crisis of homelessness. A sign asking "Is 1% too much 2 ask?" highlighted the concern that a government not willing to implement the "1%" solution to homelessness is preparing the way for increased misery in our communities. The 1% motion, drafted by NDP member Libby Davies, states
"That, in the opinion of this House, the government should adopt a national housing strategy and housing supply program, in co-operation with the provinces, that recognizes housing as a human right and meets the goal of providing an additional 1% of federal budgetary spending to meet basic housing needs in Canada."
Many anti-poverty organizations see the 1% motion as a desperately needed first step to addressing the serious crisis of lack of affordable housing in Canada.
"If the government doesn't seize this opportunity to address the lack of decent, affordable housing, they are dooming millions of people to a future of life on the streets, in places like Zero City. We need a 1% beginning, not a zero percent abandonment," says Homes Not Bombs spokesperson Gail Lorimer.
Leaflets encouraged people to contact their MPs and ask them to support this motion, scheduled for debate on Friday, February 11 at 1:30 p.m. About 20 people attended Zero City, which ended with a candlelight vigil, as the names of people who have died homeless were read out. The refrain "people who have died homeless, who might have lived: 1% is not too much" was repeated at intervals.
54 Homes Not Bombs activists were arrested in Ottawa, November 12, 1999, for taking part in a non-violent demonstration attempting to convert the War Department into the Housing Department. Trials are pending. Homes Not Bombs (Hamilton) can be reached at hasc@tao.ca or by phoning (905) 627-2696 or (905) 528-5925. Homes Not Bombs Toronto can be reached at tasc@web.net or (416) 651-5800.
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Dundas Star News, Wednesday, February 16, 2000
Bryden fingers Tories for homeless situation
Protesters are marching at wrong door, MP says
By Richard Leitner
Staff Writer Wentworth-Burlington Liberal MP John Bryden says protesters are choosing the wrong target by demonstrating outside his office for more money for social housing.
Rejecting their calls for his government to boost its spending on social housing, Mr. Bryden said the province is to blame for the growing number of homeless people in Ontario because it prefers cutting taxes over fulfilling its constitutional responsibility for housing.
"As far as I'm concerned, the protesters are protesting at the wrong door. They should be protesting at the door of the area MPPs" he said, calling homelessness a provincial disgrace. "We all want tax cuts, but the whole idea of having organized society is that you have to pay a certain amount of tax for a certain amount of service. And as a government decides not to provide a minimum service that is expected by the taxpayers, the taxpayers should expect to see consequences."
During an early evening protest outside his Dundas constituency office last week, a dozen people called on Bryden and his government to commit to a target of spending an extra one percent of the federal budget on housing - about $2 billion annually, double what it currently spends.
The Chretien government stopped building social housing in 1993, a move that cut the planned construction of 75,000 units by 1997. It recently committed an extra $305 million for housing shelters over three years, but has made no indication it will start building housing units again.
"It was declared a national disaster by the United Nations but they've done nothing" said Randy Kay, a Dundas resident who helped organize last week's demonstration.
"They've studied it to death, literally to death - people are dying all the time - and they're studying and they want to study it more. It's time to start taking small steps toward (solving the problem)."
A member of the group Homes Not Bombs, Mr Kay said the federal government didn't blink an eye in spending $500 million on the war in Yugoslavia, so political will, rather than money, is at the root of the problem.
"Someone's got to take responsibility, Who is the federal government supposed to be governing for, if not all the people?," he said, calling the one percent target reasonable.
But Mr. Bryden said
homelessness is less the result of a housing shortage than the provinces closing of psychiatric hospital beds and "desperate" underfunding of existing shelters.
He said he opposes his government re-entering social housing construction because it is a provincial responsibility and will only lead to more federal bashing.
"I feel very strongly that this federal government, and I hope the (upcoming) budget reflects it, has to spend in the federal areas, and that the provinces spend in the provincial areas," Mr. Bryden said.
"Otherwise,
we get blamed for not spending in areas of provincial responsibility at the same time as we're blamed for not cutting taxes. I can tell you up here in Ottawa, I think just about every Liberal backbencher is fed up dealing with Ontario. We're fed up with the fact that we're being blamed for what is entirely an Ontario responsibility."
While Wentworth-Burlington currently has no provincial representative, Stoney Creek Tory MPP Brad Clark aid he believes his government is doing more than its fair share to address homelessness.
TREATMENT
The province has assumed financial and administrative responsibility for thousands of federal not-for-profit housing units, he said, calling the issue of psychiatric bed closures "a red herring" because discharged patients who refuse to take their medication cannot be forced into treatment.
"I think it's shameful that politicians from all levels of governments are still playing the blame game. It's the responsibility of municipalities, the province and the federal government to deal with the homeless issue," Mr. Clark said.
"I think everybody should be sitting down working together to solve the issue."
Murray Lumley, an Ancaster resident who also took part in the protest, said Canada is one of the few developed nations without a national housing strategy, something he blames on the current political climate.
"I think (federal Finance Minister) Paul Martin and the business leaders in Canada have gone the route of neo-liberalism or neo-conservatism that says the free market will take care of everything," he said.
"It doesn't work in the United States. They have a huge gap between the rich and the poor. It's not working here. I read things from Central and South America; it doesn't work there.
"The neo-liberal agenda creates millionaires, but basically takes away from the lowest income and most vulnerable people in every country. There has to be some sort of levelling and redistribution so that everybody tends to live, but I don't think we have the political will in Canada, even among the populace, to make it happen."
[Photo caption: PROTESTERS HOLD A candlelight vigil outside local Liberal MP John Bryden's office in honour of more than 40 homeless people who have died on the streets in recent years. The vigil was held to show support for calls for the federal government to boost spending on social housing.]
