Eviction

• The two organizations join L.A. Care Health Plan, which made previous investments totaling $1.8 million, as the program's biggest donors.
• L.A. Care's early support was critical for getting the We Are LA program off the ground and establishing its success.
• "Earlier this year, L.A. Care Health Plan made a generous donation to the Mayor's Fund for this important effort and now I want to commend The Bob & Dolores Hope Foundation and Health Net for taking this courageous step and joining this effort.
• Moreover, homelessness significantly undermines preventive health measures and exacerbates existing health issues," said Martha Santana-Chin, President of Medi-Cal and Medicare at Health Net.

• OTTAWA, ON, Feb. 13, 2024 /CNW/ - Today, Federal Housing Advocate Marie-Josée Houle is calling for a national response to the human rights crisis facing people living in homeless encampments.
• In her final report on encampments released today, the Advocate is recommending that the federal government establish a National Encampments Response Plan by August 31, 2024.
• This Act recognizes housing as a fundamental human right in Canada, and mandated the Federal Housing Advocate to undertake reviews of systemic housing issues.
• The National Housing Strategy Act specifies that when the Minister responsible for housing receives the report of such a systemic review, the Minister must respond within 120 days.

It feels like housing is at a tipping point in the city of Edmonton. There have been four main events highlighting the situation:
These events should be understood within ongoing settler colonialism and a housing crisis endemic in Canada’s broader housing system.

Housing in Canada

• The state of housing both in Canada and globally is worsening, but the housing crisis is not new.
• Read more:
  Two-thirds of Canadian and American renters are in unaffordable housing situations

  While affordable housing policies in Canada emerged following the Second World War, colonialism is foundational to housing policy, evidenced by the high rates of housing vulnerability that Indigenous Peoples face.

Encampment sweeps violate human rights

• This isn’t happening, apparently, when it comes to encampments, which are both a site of human rights violations and of human rights claims.
• The coalition argued human rights were violated during encampment sweeps.
• Domicide is applicable to the encampment sweeps in Edmonton, the historical domicide that enabled the settlement of Edmonton in the first place, and the laws that governed the unsuccessful lawsuit launched by the Coalition for Justice and Human Rights.

Coming together in colonialism

• When authorities make reference to “public safety” concerns about encampment, unhoused people are positioned as dangerous.
• The destruction of those encampments simply drives people who are unhoused further to the margins.
• But punitive approaches like encampment sweeps perpetuate settler colonialism and prioritize the perceptions and preferences of the ruling class.

Katie MacDonald receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

• Results from a groundbreaking new survey of rental housing providers have revealed staggering increases of fraud, contributing to both the growth in rents and number of evictions.
• Driven in part by social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram , the rise in false rental housing applications is exacerbating rental costs, fueling the housing affordability challenges facing communities across the country and undermining the credibility of eviction data.
• This in turn leads to higher costs for rental housing providers and, ultimately, the renters they house.
• “While most renters are honest, those who are not are causing the cost of rental housing to increase for everyone.