|
Make housing an election issue
Governments should devote one percent of their budgets to housing.
Dateline: Saturday, January 14, 2006
by Alex Robb,
sponsored feature from the Centre for Social Justice
The health and well-being of our communities and our country depend on everyone in Canada having access to appropriate, secure, decent, affordable housing.
We are in the midst of a nation-wide affordable housing crisis. Little, if any, affordable housing has been built in recent years, and some affordable units have disappeared as a result of redevelopment.
Government funded affordable housing can provide homes for the homeless and security for lone adults and young families who have difficulty paying market rents.
Through our tax system, the federal government provides a sizeable annual subsidy to every Canadian home owner, but is unwilling to provide a more modest annual subsidy to poor Canadians so that they may live in affordable housing.
The One Percent Solution
In the mid-1990s, the various levels of government in Canada were spending approximately 1 percent of their budgets on housing. Since then, governments have made substantial housing cuts.
The One Percent Solution calls on all levels of government to return to their housing expenditures of the mid-1990s. This would entail an additional $2 billion/year from the provincial and territorial governments combined.
The One Percent Solution has three recommendations:
1. Funding of $2 billion federally and another $2 billion among provinces and territories.
2. Restoring and renewing national, provincial and territorial programs aimed at resolving the housing crisis and homelessness disaster.
3. Extension of the federal homelessness strategy (Supporting Community Partnerships Initiative) with immediate funding for new and expanded shelter and services across the country.
Information provided by:
Toronto Disaster Relief Committee (link below)
Canadian Housing and Renewal Association (link below).
This article is sponsored by the Centre for Social Justice as part of its Voteforchange campaign (link below).
And for more on Vote for a Change, go to the SG article here: http://www.straightgoods.ca/Election2006/ViewNews.cfm?Ref=51 Related addresses:
URL 1: www.tdrc.net/
URL 2: www.chra-achru.ca/
URL 3: voteforachange.ca/?q=node/9
[ News List ]
|
