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On October 17, Unifor marks the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. This year’s focus is “Safe Homes for All,” which fits within the UN’s broader theme, “United for Peace and Human Rights.”
A safe, stable and affordable home is a fundamental human right, not a privilege. The quality of a person’s housing shapes every part of their life, including their health, education, work and family. Without a safe, stable and affordable home, everything else becomes significantly more difficult. According to the UN, approximately 2.8 billion people around the world live in some form of inadequate housing, and people experiencing poverty are disproportionately represented among them.
Poverty and poor housing conditions trap people in a cycle that is hard to escape. When rent consumes half or more of a household’s income before food, utilities and transportation, when families are forced to share cramped spaces that may be unsafe or deteriorating, and when someone is one missed payment away from losing their home, poverty worsens and becomes increasingly difficult to break free from. Until we address the housing crisis, we will never eliminate poverty in Canada.
Working Canadians are being pushed into housing insecurity every day. Rents and home prices are sky high, far outpacing wages. Many young workers are delaying starting a household or are leaving the communities they were born and raised in. Seniors on fixed incomes are struggling to stay in their homes as rents climb. Homeless encampments have become commonplace in cities and towns across the country. And the people facing the greatest harm are those already up against systemic barriers, including Indigenous peoples, Black and racialized communities, people with disabilities and women.
No worker should have to decide whether to spend money on rent or groceries, electricity or a prescription, the mortgage or the monthly transit pass that gets them to work. Unfortunately, that is the decision too many hard-working, full-time workers are making every month.
Decent work and decent housing go hand in hand. Good union jobs with fair wages, regular hours, benefits and pensions give workers the financial stability to plan for the future and keep a roof over their heads. Collective bargaining remains one of the most effective ways for workers to raise their wages and fight poverty. But while better wages help, wages alone cannot solve a housing affordability crisis. When the private market fails to produce homes that working people can afford, governments must act.
Solutions to the housing crisis must include the people affected by it. Tenants, unhoused people and communities facing housing insecurity need to be directly involved in shaping housing policy, not simply consulted after the fact.
That is why Unifor, through the Unifor Social Justice Fund, has supported groups actively fighting for housing justice, including the York-South Weston Tenants Union, the National Right to Housing Network, the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights and Project Genesis in Montréal. These organizations work closely with tenants and people directly affected by housing insecurity to protect tenant rights, advance the right to housing and build stronger, safer communities.
All levels of government must do their part. Housing must be treated as a basic human right in legislation, in budgets and in practice. Governments must commit to building and preserving affordable and non-market housing, including social, co-operative and supportive housing, and to protecting the affordable rental stock we already have. Tenants need stronger protections, including real limits on rent increases and an end to bad-faith evictions and renovictions. Ending homelessness requires a serious plan built on permanent housing, not displacement. And income supports and minimum wages must reflect what it actually costs to live in Canada.
The housing affordability crisis did not happen by accident. It was created through policy decisions, and better policy decisions can reverse it.
On this International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Unifor reaffirms its commitment to a Canada where every person has a safe place to call home and the economic security to live with dignity. We will keep organizing, bargaining and pushing governments to make it happen.
