rabble news

Housing First: The best bet to end homelessness

From 2002 to 2008, the counted number of homeless in Metro Vancouver increased 137 per cent, from 1,121 to 2,660. What is equally important, from 30 to 50 per cent (with some estimating as high as 70 per cent) of the homeless population in Vancouver have mental health concerns. An unfortunate result of de-institutionalization is that the burden of mental healthcare has fallen on the police and general hospitals. To solve homelessness, we can't just build homes. We must also successfully address the mental health concerns of the homeless.

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People's Health Radio

Housing, homelessness and health

January 20, 2012
| People's Health Radio takes a look at the health impacts of inadequate housing with a particular focus on people in extremely marginalized housing such as shelters and hotels.

60:55 minutes (55.77 MB)
John Bonnar

How social safety nets saved a man from becoming homeless

| January 17, 2012
in his own words

Occupying housing from the Pope Squat to Occupy Toronto

The Pope Squat building of 2002. Photo: The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.

It was a sweltering afternoon in late July 2002 when the armoured vehicles of the Toronto Police Emergency Task Force pulled up in front of our building. Quickly we started barricading the door with an old desk, if they were coming to kick us out we weren't going to make it easy for them. We waited tensely as the cops approached the door with submachine guns drawn. Our crime? We dared to take over an abandoned building in the middle of a housing crisis. We all survived that early raid and were eventually allowed back into the building where we lived for the next three months -- dubbing it the "Pope Squat" as we occupied it during the pontiff's visit to Toronto.

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rabble interview

Adrian Dix on the way ahead for B.C.'s NDP

BC NDP leader Adrian Dix. Photo: David P. Ball

After 10 years exiled from office in British Columbia. -- and a decade of severe cutbacks under the BC Liberals -- the NDP says it is ready to take back power in 2013.

Earlier this month, 700 New Democrats from across B.C. gathered for the party's 50th anniversary and annual party convention. The convention saw no leadership race -- everyone attending wore a lanyard bearing, on orange string, the name of Adrian Dix. Rewind a year, and you'll recall some of the most bitter infighting in the party's history, with former leader Carole James -- whom Dix cites as a personal mentor and inspiration -- resigning after a mutiny.

In an interview with rabble.ca, Dix describes how the party intends to push forward in 2012 and beyond.

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Housing in the Northwest Territories

| November 28, 2011

National Housing Day rally and march!

Nov 22 2011 - 12:00pm
Nov 22 2011 - 1:30pm

Location

St. James Park (Occupy Toronto site)
King st. East and Jarvis march to Attorney General of Canada at 130 King st. West
Toronto, ON
Canada
43° 39' 1.6596" N, 79° 22' 18.9264" W

Tuesday November 22, is National Housing Day. 

Between 150,000- 300,000 people are homeless in Canada, and millions more are living in inadequate or unaffordable housing. And yet, Canada is the only major industrialized country without a national housing program. Aboriginal peoples, racialized communities, people with disabilities, women, seniors and other marginalized groups are disproportionately affected by housing insecurity. 

On National Housing Day join the Right to Housing Coalition for a rally to demand a national housing strategy and to support the Charter challenge to end homelessness.

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