Excerpts from the report:
This report on women who are homeless is based on interviews with 46 women who self-identified as homeless in Halifax, Ottawa, and Vancouver and features their voices and perspectives on homelessness. It also provides recommendations for all levels of government that identify the actions governments should take, immediately, to deal with Canada's homelessness and poverty....
To counter both homelessness and poverty we must challenge attitudes about poor people and their homelessness. Governments must be made to take responsibility for these current crises. We must also ensure that governments implement concrete and effective ways of dealing with homelessness.
The Federal Government should:
- Implement and adequately fund a national housing strategy.
- Implement and adequately fund a national action plan on the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
- Implement and adequately fund a national child care program.
- Reinstate the right (formerly contained in CAP) to social assistance without workfare, time limits, waiting periods and other restrictions.
- Increase transfer payments to the provinces specifically for social housing and income support programs.
- Increase spending on social housing to at least 1% of total expenditures.