Canada’s federal government announced on Monday that it would commit CAD 250mn (USD 186mn) to address the growing problem of encampments and homelessness across Canada. Provinces will be required to match the government’s investment cost to qualify for the grants. 

The funding builds on the existing Reaching Home program, which aims to allocate $3.7 billion over nine years to tackle homelessness, which has become a growing concern in the country. According to statistics from Statistics Canada, at least 235,000 people are experiencing homelessness in the country. The issue has grown exponentially since COVID-19, which caused widespread economic disruptions. This has led to the rise of so-called ‘homeless encampments,’ which are usually defined as temporary, outdoor campsites on public property or privately owned land used by people experiencing homelessness, usually without official permission. This has led to conflict between the encampment dwellers and community members, who claim that the encampments are limiting the community’s access to public goods. In some cases, local governments cleared encampments with the help of police. 

However, the process of receiving a judicial order to clear encampments is stringent in Canada, which is a signatory to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which inter alia guarantees the right to housing of an adequate standard. In Victoria v. Adams (2009), British Columbia’s highest provincial court, the Court of Appeal, found that Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights of Freedoms, which protects the right to life, liberty, and security of the person, includes housing rights, even if that “housing” is in an encampment. This set two criteria for evicting encampment dwellers, including that 1:encampments cannot be evicted at night since sleeping is a basic right protected by Section 7, and that 2: sufficient shelter space must exist to house all the evicted dwellers. 

Commenting on the government’s decision to allocate the $186mn grant, Sean Fraser, Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, stated, “Across Canada, playgrounds, parks, and public squares have become the last refuge for too many individuals. The harsh realities faced by those living without stable shelter do not reflect the values we hold as Canadians.”