A House Divided: Disabilities, Inequalities, and Shared Futures


Michelle Owen, University of Winnipeg; Jeremy Wildeman, Canadian Centre for Housing Rights

Systemic inequality in housing remains a significant and neglected problem across Canada. The Government of Canada’s historic 2019 National Housing Strategy Act (NHSA) legislates the right to housing. As one of only a handful of countries with such legislation for housing, the NHSA sets Canada apart as a global normative leader. However, there is one significant barrier to achieving the right to housing in this country, namely the discrimination faced by disabled people when accessing and remaining in appropriate housing. Ensuring the right to housing implicates issues such as the availability of affordable and accessible housing, the supports required by people with disabilities to remain housed, the availability and appropriateness of income supports to sustain tenancy arrangements, as well as fair adjudicative processes surrounding evictions. To date, the barriers to the right to housing for disabled people have been largely unexplored, despite 27% of Canadians being disabled and the significant intersection between housing insecurity and disability. Through original research, including interviews with people with lived experience and service providers, and an expansive grey literature review, this presentation elucidates those barriers nationally, and provincially in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia. The lack of attention given to this issue makes it difficult to ascertain why a significant proportion of people experiencing homelessness have disabilities. Our Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded project ‘The Right to Housing for Tenants with Disabilities in Canada’ seeks to fill this empirical gap through an examination of the varying experiences of discrimination encountered by disabled Canadians and the strategies used to deal with these barriers. We aim to contribute to a research agenda concerning the right to housing for disabled people in Canada and how the ongoing experiences of discrimination and basic affordability are preventing people with disabilities from realizing their right to housing. We will do this by identifying the ways in which discrimination and the denial of appropriate housing can be changed through additional supports for people living with disabilities, as well as policy and legislative changes. Our project, and this presentation, focuses on the right to housing for disabled people and asks three broad research questions centered on the experience of discrimination by people with disabilities in the context of securing and maintaining appropriate housing. First, how do disabled people experience the right to housing across Canada? Second, what discriminatory barriers do people with disabilities face across Canada? Third, what supports, procedural or process changes, and revisions to laws, policies, and programs, will help disabled people overcome these barriers to the right to housing? These questions are being explored through emancipatory research, and purposeful partnerships between academic researchers in multiple disciplines and community organizations. The theoretical approaches taken by this research cross sectors and are deeply intersectional and interdisciplinary. This research promotes an understanding of the right to housing as described in Canadian and international law. It also adopts the social and human rights models of disability and explores the mechanisms of law and policy related to housing, disability, social justice, and the lived experience of marginalized and disadvantaged groups who experience discrimination. As such, our theoretical approaches are rooted in the ‘right to housing’ concept. This research also adopts a mixed methodology, and project activities form four overlapping strands to explore the right to housing for disabled people. We do not have any firm conclusions yet as we are in the preliminary stages of data collection and analysis. Thus far we have been focusing on network development, direction setting, knowledge exchange, and capacity-building. However, our literature reviews support our argument that Canadians with disabilities are discriminated against in terms of attaining and maintaining adequate housing. The narratives we gather through semi-structured interviews with people with lived experience of disability will enrich the literature. This presentation is highly relevant to both the theme of Sustaining Shared Futures, and the focus of the open session of the CSA Sociology of Disability Research Cluster on Disabilities, Equality, and Inequality. In this presentation we consider the sustainability of our shared futures in the context of disabilities and housing. The current situation is inequitable and must be challenged and changed. Canadians with disabilities have the right to housing.

Non-presenting author: Jewelles Smith, Canadian Centre for Housing Rights; Kristen Hardy, University of Winnipeg and Brandon University; Ugonna Chigbo, University of Winnipeg

This paper will be presented at the following session: