The document discusses the historical and current state of social housing in Toronto and Canada, highlighting persistent issues such as housing insecurity, rising homelessness, and inadequate federal investments. It reviews various historical milestones and governmental policies affecting housing, pointing to significant declines in social housing since the 1990s. The text underscores the need for a comprehensive national housing plan and reiterates the right to adequate housing as essential for health and wellbeing.

1. Homes for all: Social
housing in Toronto and
Canada
Michael Shapcott
The Wellesley Institute
University of Pennsylvania, March 2014

2. YWCAElmCentre

3. Toronto
1911

4. 2014-SprucecourtApts-1914
Dr Charles
Hastings

5. 100
years old
and still
going
strong

6. Toronto, 1911: Founding
of Wellesley Hospital

7. Toronto, 1911:
Wellesley Hospital

8. “The health
of Toronto
must
necessarily
the health
of its
citizens.”
!
Dr. H.A. Bruce,
Lieutenant
-Governor
of Ontario, 1934

9. “Our survey of Toronto housing reveals... thousands of
families living in houses which are insanitary,
verminous, and grossly overcrowded... Bad houses are
not only a menace: they are active agents of destruction...
they destroy happiness, health and life...”
!
“Housing conditions are bad because many families cannot
earn enough to pay for decent and healthful dwellings...”
!
“Not only were bad housing conditions discovered, but the
presence of a serious housing shortage was also detected...
The community is responsible for provision of satisfactory
dwellings for those who are too poor to afford them.”
!
The Bruce Commission, 1934

10. Toronto’s Moss Park neighbourhood

11. New ‘garden city’ neighbourhood

12. Bad housing makes you sick!
Homelessness:
Increased morbidity
Increased premature morality
Mental health:
Alarming rates... especially
Clinical depression and anxiety
Control / meaning
Collective efficacy
Biological / physical:
Chemicals, gases, pollutants
Design (accidents) / crowdingSocio-economic:
Affordability / energy
Transportation / income / jobs
Contextual:
Individual / neighbourhood deprivation
networks / friends / crime

13. Good housing good for health!
Physical and mental health:
Better health outcomes /
decreased health care utilization
Community safety:
Reduced recidivism among
people leaving incarceration
Affordability interventions:
Income-based housing subsidies
Environment / physical infrastructure:
New housing, repairs, heating, noise,
indoor + outdoor environmental issues,
allergens, water + sanitation

14. Is regeneration
working for
health and
well-being of
public housing
residents?
!
How do we
know?

15. Dominion Housing Act (1935) is a ‘comedy of
errors’, ‘an act to facilitate the financing of homes
for the middle class who were not in the market.’
!
Dominion Housing Authority is required to provide
financing for rental housing aimed at low-income
households. ‘I am sure it is not beyond the art of
man to bring this about, even in
Canada, even after five years of
desperate depression.’
!
Percy Nobbs,
Dean of Architecture,
McGill University,
January, 1936

16. Immediate post-war era (1940s to 1960s):
!
• Creation of Central (now Canada) Mortgage and
Housing Corporation
!
• Loan / mortgage assistance (espy for returning war
vets) - long-term mortgages
!
• Public housing / urban renewal (75% federal funding /
25% provincial)

17. ! Good housing at a reasonable cost is
a social right of every citizen of this
country. . . This must be our objective,
our obligation and our goal.
Federal government, 1973
Hon. Ron Basford
National
Housing
Act 1973

18. Mid 1970s to mid-1990s:
!
• 600,000+ new social
homes in mixed-income
buildings / neighbourhoods
• Provincial cost-sharing
Bathurst
Quay
St
Lawrence

20. Toronto 1911:
Founding of
Wellesley Hospital
John Peters Humphrey:
‘Father of modern international human rights system’

21. 31st October 1945. MACKAY J.:—This is an application brought
by Drummond Wren... to have declared invalid a restrictive
covenant... namely, ‘Land not to be sold to Jews or persons of
objectionable nationality.’...
First and of profound significance is the recent San Francisco
Charter, to which Canada was a signatory, and which the
Dominion Parliament has now ratified. Under articles 1 and 55 of
this Charter, Canada is pledged to promote ‘universal respect for,
and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for
all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.’...
An order will therefore go declaring that the restrictive
covenant attacked by the applicant is void and of no effect.

22. Toronto 1911:
Founding of
Wellesley Hospital
International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights
!
Article 11
1. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize
the right of everyone to an adequate standard of
living for himself and his family, including adequate food,
clothing and housing, and to the continuous
improvement of living conditions. The
States Parties will take appropriate steps
to ensure the realization of this right...

23. Toronto 1911:
Founding of
Wellesley Hospital
City of Kitchener (2010)
Ontario Municipal Board
Discriminatory municipal bylaw on spatial separation
!
“Statutory tribunals empowered to decide questions of law are presumed
to have the power to look beyond their enabling statutes in order to apply
the whole law to a matter properly in front of them.... The presumptive
power to look beyond the tribunal's enabling statute is triggered simply
where a tribunal (with the authority to decide questions of law) is
confronted with "issues... that arise in the course of a case properly
before” it....”
Victoria (City) v. Adams (2009)
BC Court of Appeal
Municipal bylaw criminalizing activities
associated with homelessness
“The use of international instruments to aid in the
interpretation of the meaning and scope of rights under
the Charter, and in particular the rights protected under s.
7 and the principles of fundamental justice, is well-
established in Canadian jurisprudence.”

25. UN Special
Rapporteur,
2009
“Canada has a long and proud history of
housing successes, and has been known
around the world for its innovative
housing solutions. The Special Rapporteur
visited and received information about
programmes, laws and policies that
represent good practices... Canada can
also rely on a tremendous range of
academic and civil society resources.” !

26. Happily
ever after?

27. Four observations:
!
!
1.Housing insecurity deep / persistent
2.Costly to people, communities,
economy, government
3.Federal housing / homelessness
investments eroding
4.No comprehensive national plan

28. Most
housing
needs
invisible
!

29. UN Special Rapporteur, 2009
“There has been a significant erosion of housing rights
over the past two decades. Canada’s successful social
housing programme, which created more than half a
million homes starting in 1973, has been discontinued.

30. “It is only in Canada that the national government has, except
for CMHC loans, withdrawn from social housing. The rush to
get out of managing existing projects and building new, low-
income housing has taken advocates by surprise. It was
never imagined that a system that had taken 50 years to
build-up could be dismantled so rapidly. Social housing policy
in Canada now consists of a checker-board of 12 provincial
and territorial policies, and innumerable local policies. It is
truly post-modern.”
!
Dr. Jean M. Wolfe, McGill University, 1998
No national
housing plan

31. Devolution of social housing:
!
• 1984 to 1993 - funding cuts to federal housing programs
!
• 1993 - no new funding for new social housing
!
• 1995 - Ontario suspends provincial housing programs
!
• 1996 - feds start to download federal housing programs
!
• 1998 - Ontario starts to download provincial housing programs
!
• 1998 - National Housing Act amended - focus on
commercialization of national housing agency

32. 0.50%
0.60%
0.70%
0.80%
0.90%
1.00%
1.10%
1.20%
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
Federal housing investments as a
percentage of GDP)
Government Revenues and Expenditures 2009

33. Federal housing investments
(in millions)
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation 2012
$1,500
$1,750
$2,000
$2,250
$2,500
$2,750
$3,000
$3,250
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017

34. When the feds cut a dollar in housing
investments… matching funds from
provinces, territories, municipalities,
community and business are lost

35. 450000
500000
550000
600000
650000
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
626,300 homes in 2007
492,500 homes in 2017
Loss of 133,800 homes
22% of entire stock
Federally subsidized homes
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation 2012

36. Advocacy successes, but fractured responses:
!
• 2001 - Affordable Housing Framework Agreement
!
• 2005 - Two-year affordable housing funding
!
• 2009 - Federal stimulus program (two years of funding)
!
• 2014 - four-year extension of housing funding

37. Steve Pomeroy - Focus Consulting - 2012

38. “After 20 years of continuous decline, both inequality and
poverty rates have increased rapidly in the past 10 years,
now reaching levels above the OECD average.”
OECD (2008), Growing Unequal? : Income Distribution and
Poverty in OECD Countries

39. Toronto social housing wait list:
!
• January 2014 - 91,232 households (167,908 people)
!
• New record every month since recession of 2008
!
• Up 10% in one year

40. Toronto - 1970
!
Below middle
Middle income
Upper income
The Three Cities - David Hulchanski, U of T

41. Toronto - 2005
!
Below middle
Middle income
Upper income
The Three Cities - David Hulchanski, U of T

42. Poverty and
poor health
Toronto Health Profiles

43. Systems thinking:
How interconnections
in complex, dynamic
world impact our lives
and our health

44. Toronto 1911:
Founding of
Wellesley Hospital
Making the
connections

45. Wellesley Urban
Health Model

46. Social exclusion...
...cultural adequacy:
The equity lens

47. Build communities - not just housing

48. Toronto 1911:
Founding of
Wellesley Hospital
Right to the city!

49. Practical
proposals:
The Mexico
City Charter

51. Thank you!
www.wellesleyinstitute.com