Standing with communities across Canada displaced by wildfires.
The Women’s National Housing & Homelessness Network (WNHHN) and National Indigenous Women’s Housing Network (NIWHN) stand in solidarity with the communities across Ontario, British Columbia, the Prairies and Canada’s North that are affected by devastating, ongoing wildfires, and with all those who have been displaced and otherwise impacted. We extend our deepest gratitude to the first responders, emergency personnel, community organizations, and volunteers working tirelessly to support those affected.
Climate change disproportionately impacts low-income households, people living with disabilities and chronic illnesses, seniors, and people experiencing homelessness or housing precarity. Their vulnerability to climate hazards is often heightened by a lack of affordable, adequate, and accessible housing that can withstand extreme weather events.
Women, girls, Two-Spirit, trans, and gender-diverse people, particularly those living on reserves, experiencing poverty or homelessness, fleeing violence, or living with disabilities, face disproportionate risks during, and after climate-related disasters.
In the absence of safe, gender-responsive emergency shelters, these groups are at risk of homelessness in disaster zones, gender-based violence, exploitation, disruptions to essential healthcare and disability supports, worsening health conditions and prolonged displacement. These risks are particularly acute for persons with disabilities, who are estimated to be two to four times more likely to be injured or die during climate emergencies, including heatwaves, hurricanes, and floods (Harvard, 2023), a disproportionate threat explicitly recognized by the World Health Organization and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Women escaping gender-based violence may also lose access to their affordable housing or become separated from critical support networks during climate-related disasters. People with disabilities may similarly encounter inaccessible evacuation procedures, transportation barriers, disruptions to essential medical care, and emergency shelters that fail to meet their accessibility needs. Those already experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity have few safe places to go and are often excluded from emergency planning and response efforts altogether.
At present, more than 2800 people across Ontario have been displaced by wildfires, with First Nations communities being disproportionately affected by evacuation orders (CBC News, 2026). In British Columbia, 1,300 properties have been ordered to evacuate and another 6,650 properties are under evacuation alert as of July 25th, 2026.
Similar conditions are present across Canada’s North, where wildfires are burning down communities that can only be accessed either seasonally via ice-roads, boat or air travel, making rebuilding significantly more expensive and inefficient. Wildfires are also burning near uranium mining sites that pose radiation risks to surrounding Northern communities.
For First Nations communities, repeated evacuations compound the ongoing impacts of colonial displacement by disrupting cultural connections, community cohesion, and long-term housing stability.
Leaving housing stability unaddressed while seasonal wildfires become more extreme year after year is turning Canada’s housing crisis into a housing disaster.
Climate resilience cannot be achieved without investing in deeply affordable, accessible, gender-responsive, and anti-colonial housing systems that enable people to withstand and recover from emergencies safely and with dignity. Emergency preparedness and disaster recovery efforts must be designed through an intersectional lens that recognizes how gender, disability, Indigeneity, race, income, and housing status influence survival and recovery from climate disasters.
WNHHN and NIWHN continue to call on all orders of government to:
- Require that all future housing and infrastructure investments incorporate forward-looking climate risk assessments, updated building codes, and resilience standards that reflect projected climate conditions, including extreme heat, flooding, and severe weather.
- Invest in retrofitting existing affordable and supportive housing to improve energy efficiency, cooling systems, indoor air quality, accessibility, and climate resilience, including measures to offset increased energy costs associated with cooling and other climate-resilient improvements for low-income tenants.
- Ensure emergency climate and disaster response planning is gender-responsive, recognizes housing as a human right, and includes accessible housing responses and protections for people experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity, living with disabilities or chronic illnesses, or fleeing gender-based violence.
- Align National Housing Strategy policies and investments with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and international human rights standards, including the right to adequate housing, by embedding measurable targets for gender equality, accessibility, climate resilience, and poverty reduction.
To all those affected by the Ontario wildfires, we extend our continued solidarity and support.
As climate-related disasters become increasingly frequent and severe, WNHHN and NIWHN remain committed to advocating for equitable, accessible, and climate-resilient housing systems to help ensure that everyone has a safe place to call home before, during, and after climate emergencies. We extend our continued solidarity and support to all those affected.
In solidarity,
The WNHHN & NIWHN Teams