Canada failing to meet international human rights obligations

Vancouver, September 8, 2008 - Canada is failing to meet key international obligations on the issue of housing and homelessness in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, according to submissions made by Pivot Legal Society to the United Nations Human Rights Council today.

Pivot's submissions to the UNHRC’s Universal Periodic Review, which evaluates Canada’s fulfillment of its human rights commitments, detail the continuing homelessness crisis in Vancouver, focusing on several key points:
• displacement of individuals through gentrification, rental scarcity and eviction;
• failure to ensure minimum standards of health and safety in low-income rental housing stock;
• failure to provide police protection or adequate remedies to tenants who are illegally evicted; and
• the use of security guards and police officers to relocate and intimidate homeless individuals.

“I hope that someone at the United Nations will read this and give the Canadian government a poke in the ribs” said Hendrik Beune, a resident of the Downtown Eastside. “The conditions in this neighbourhood are worse than in many third world countries.”

Pivot’s submission describes a Vancouver where street homelessness has increased in the area by at least 39% from 2005; where low-income rental housing stock continues to close and deteriorate; where inadequate protections against displacement by gentrification threaten long-time low-income resident populations; and where the criminalization of homelessness through policing and private security initiatives threaten the health and safety of homeless populations.

“Canada is falling well short of its commitment to honour the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said lawyer and Pivot housing campaigner Laura Track. “In particular, Canada is failing in its commitment to provide adequate housing, which is critical for ensuring an adequate standard of living for its citizens.”