An international organization focused on housing says we need to rethink how we address homelessness.
Julieta Perucca, deputy director of the Shift said those experiencing homelessness should be viewed as people experiencing a violation of the right to housing.
"I think it's important to understand that homelessness and encampments are really the symptom of a housing system that has completely failed," she said.
Perucca said this is a result of governments not understanding housing as a human right.
"It's central to all of us having a life of dignity and security. Rather, just allowing speculation and private interest to drive up housing prices that outpace household income, social assistance rates, and disability benefits," she said.
"And then when people find themselves on the outside of the housing market---disenfranchised, in the most vulnerable situation they have ever been in, what we do is treat them as criminals or as people who have failed, rather than understanding them as human rights bearers and people who've experienced an egregious violation of the right to housing."
Perucca said people experiencing homelessness need to be brought into discussions about what happens to them.
"Normally, through the guidance of cities like Kitchener, who have their ears so close to the ground, and with the support of those actually living in homelessness, who know and are experts in their own lives. And, who know what solutions they need to enjoy their right to housing," she said.
The Region of Waterloo is working with two grassroots organizations in it's response to homelessness---A Better Tent City and The Kitchener Lived Expertise Group, which is made up of people who have experienced homelessness.
Perucca said while the City of Kitchener is doing well by allowing A Better Tent City to stay, it's still missing the mark on human rights.
"People there don't know when they're going to have to move. They don't know where their next home is going to be."
Residents of the Kitchener encampment at Weber and Victoria are waiting for November court dates after the region filed an application to evict them, arguing they violated a bylaw for region-owned land.
She said it's crucial that other levels of government offer support.
"Especially at the provincial level, the Shift and other advocates are having the hardest time trying to get through the provincial government that they need to come to the table to solve the issue of homelessness and encampments. Housing and health are all under the purview of the provincial government," Perucca.
"They seem the most averse to recognizing housing as a human right."
While the federal government recognized housing as a human right in the National Housing Strategy Act of 2019, Perucca said it hasn't backed it up with funding and supports for local governments.
"How do we as a community view those most disenfranchised, those most vulnerable as human rights bearers and as people worthy of a life of dignity and security," she said.
"I think that's going to be key to this problem as well. It's going to have to come from us, from the constituents."
