Our submission calls on the federal government to ensure its new housing initiative delivers safe, affordable homes for women, Two-Spirit, trans, and gender-diverse people.
Canada’s new Build Canada Homes initiative represents an unprecedented federal commitment to addressing the housing crisis, with a target of constructing 500,000 homes annually. But if we want this historic investment to succeed, we must ensure it meets the needs of those most at risk of being left behind.
In our submission to the federal Market Sounding Guide, the Women’s National Housing & Homelessness Network (WNHHN) emphasized that housing policy is never gender-neutral. READ IT HERE.
Women, Two-Spirit, trans, and gender-diverse people often experience hidden forms of homelessness, including staying in unsafe or overcrowded housing, couch surfing, or remaining in violent relationships for lack of alternatives. Indigenous women and gender-diverse people are disproportionately impacted.
Unless Build Canada Homes is designed with these realities in mind, it risks reproducing the same systemic gaps that have made the National Housing Strategy fall short.
Our submission calls for Build Canada Homes to prioritize affordability for those in deepest need by dedicating at least 40% of all new affordable and deeply affordable homes to women, Two-Spirit, trans, and gender-diverse people. We also urge the government to embed Indigenous leadership and governance throughout the program, ensure that rent levels are tied to actual incomes, and create permanent, deeply affordable housing—rather than short-term or market-driven units.
The housing crisis is urgent, but so is the opportunity before us. Build Canada Homes can be transformative if it centres equity and the human right to housing. That means building not just more homes, but the right homes—ones that are safe, affordable, and accessible for those who need them most.
Our Recommendations
Recommendation 1: Develop an enhanced Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) framework specifically focused on housing development, in collaboration with community partners and voices with lived experience.
Recommendation 2: That, in alignment with the review by the National Housing Council on the right to housing for women, Two Spirit, Trans, and gender-diverse people, the federal government commit to ending homelessness, and revitalize the National Housing Strategy in accordance with the human right to housing, as required under s. 5 of the National Housing Strategy Act. This includes establishing concrete goals and timelines to end homelessness (like Canada’s carbon goals to cut emissions by 50% by 2035) with a particular focus on improving housing outcomes for persons in greatest need (e.g., those experiencing homelessness or housing precarity)
Recommendation 3: That the government allocate 40% of affordable and deeply affordable housing units for women, Two-Spirit, trans, and gender-diverse people that are developed through various initiatives to meet the government’s campaign promise goal of building 500,000 housing units a year.