Call to action: Respect the human rights of encampment residents
We must respond to the specific needs and rights of BC residents who are experiencing the housing crisis across the whole housing spectrum.
Sent on February 26, 2025 to Premier David Eby and Minister of Housing, Ravi Khalon
Written by Chantelle Spicer, BC Poverty Reduction Coalition
Today, we are writing to support the letter sent by Marie-Josee Houlee to the Provincial Government regarding the treatment of residents forced to live in encampments. As jurisdictions across the country start to receive federal funding to address encampments and unsheltered homelessness, our Provincial Government has a critical role to play in ensuring this money makes a lasting difference in communities facing the worst impacts of the crisis and poverty.
In the Minister of Housing’s recently delivered Mandate letter, you identified the need to “support local governments, the Minister of Transportation and Transit, the Minister of Environment and Parks, and others affected by encampments with dignified, prompt, and effective interventions to move people living in encampments inside before encampments can become entrenched.” As identified by the Federal Housing Advocate, it is paramount that the interventions you describe take a human rights-based approach by including the following:
● clear commitments to human rights and consistent human rights language from all political leaders
● urgent measures to protect the life, dignity and human rights of people who are living in encampments
● a commitment to repealing laws and by-laws which contribute to the criminalization and insecurity of encampment residents
● meaningful engagement of Indigenous governments and organizations
● meaningful engagement of encampment residents
As noted by the BC Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, homeless encampments “are a result of structural conditions, including the failure of all levels of government to uphold the right to adequate housing.” If homelessness is viewed as a measure of systemic failure, then the experiences of people living in encampments should be seen as an even more acute indicator of multi-system failure. Housing is not a one size fits all solution - we need a diversity of housing options to respond to the specific needs and rights of BC residents who are experiencing the impacts of the housing crisis1in different ways, and across the whole housing spectrum.
Providing access to dignified, culturally relevant, and adequate housing along the spectrum of need is a much-needed intervention into how we respond to encampments. In the forthcoming 2025 budget, we are looking for meaningful investment in supportive housing, multi-stage transitional housing, and rent-geared-to-income units as part of the 7,500 units of housing promised in the NDP-Green agreement.
We urge you to take a human rights-based approach to ensuring the safety of residents of encampments and create the new units of housing so desperately needed in BC urgently.
