"Canada's dirty little secret": Housing Report
   "Canada's dirty little secret": Housing Report
   "Canada's dirty little secret": Housing Report
Michael Shapcott <[log in to unmask]> on 06/04/2001 11:01:46 AM

Subject:  "Canada's dirty little secret" - new report on housing

National Housing and Homelessness Network

For immediate release
June 4, 2001

New report exposes "Canada's dirty little secret"
on eve of special United Nations housing summit

TORONTO - On the eve of a special United Nations session on housing and
human settlements, the National Housing and Homelessness Network
(NHHN)
has released a new study called "Canada's dirty little secret:
homelessness in the shadow of Parliament Hill".

The U.N. session in New York City is being held on the fifth anniversary
of Habitat II, the global housing summit held in Istanbul in 1996.
Countries of the world, including Canada, are being asked to report to
the United Nations on their progress in meeting the goals of the Habitat
Agenda, endorsed at the Istanbul meeting, which sets the goal of
"housing for all".

"Canada has a proud reputation on the world stage for our record in
meeting the housing needs of Canadians from the late 1940s to the early
1990s," says Michael Shapcott, author of the NHHN report. "After all,
senior governments funded about 650,000 units of social housing that
continue to provide good homes to more than 1.8 million Canadians."

"But all that changed in the last decade," says Shapcott. "Our report
shows that federal and provincial governments have cut almost half a
billion dollars from housing spending in the last eight years. All this
has helped to trigger a nation-wide housing crisis that has pushed 2.25
million women, men and children to the brink of homelessness. The
housing crisis, in turn, has spurred a cross-country homelessness
disaster that is growing worse."

"In 1996 the federal government stood in Istanbul to support the Habitat
goal of 'housing for all', while that same year, Ottawa announced plans
to abandon its role in administering social housing programs", says
Shapcott. "On the global stage, Ottawa preaches the housing line, but at
home, Canada is the only major country in the world without a national
housing strategy."

The 48-page report is available electronically (in .pdf format) or by
fax.

For information, send an e-mail message to Michael Shapcott
at [log in to unmask]


   ..........................................
   Bob Olsen, Toronto   [log in to unmask]
   ..........................................


Dennis Raphael, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
School of Health Policy and Management
Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies
York University, 4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario CANADA M3J 1P3
email: [log in to unmask]