Women’s National Housing & Homelessness Network submitted a brief to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women on how ideology, discrimination, and outdated assumptions continue to deny women and gender-diverse people their right to housing.
Last month, the Women’s National Housing & Homelessness Network (WNHHN) submitted a brief to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women (FEWO) calling attention to an issue that too often goes unnamed in housing policy conversations: the role of anti-feminist ideology in shaping who gets safe, adequate, and affordable housing—and who does not.
At a time when Canada is grappling with a deep housing supply and affordability crisis, women and women-led families continue to experience some of the most severe housing need. This is not accidental. Housing systems in Canada were largely designed around a nuclear family model that assumes a male breadwinner and a female caregiver—an outdated framework that fails to reflect the realities of single mothers, survivors of gender-based violence, Indigenous women, and Two-Spirit, trans, and gender-diverse people.
When ideology becomes a material barrier
Our submission argues that anti-feminist rhetoric—particularly the growing influence of “manosphere” narratives—does real harm. These narratives frame women’s poverty, lone parenthood, or experiences of violence as individual failings rather than systemic injustices. In housing contexts, this translates into discrimination, exclusion, and heightened risk.
Evidence shows that single mothers face some of the highest levels of rental discrimination in Canada, frequently labeled as “high-risk” tenants by landlords due to gender, family status, and income insecurity. For women fleeing abuse, the lack of affordable, safe, family-sized housing can force impossible choices: overcrowded living conditions, prolonged stays in temporary accommodations, or even returning to an abuser because there is nowhere else to go.
The Neha Review Panel—appointed by the Federal Housing Advocate—heard this clearly. After gathering testimony from more than 500 women and gender-diverse people across the country, the Panel concluded that gendered and racialized income inequities are among the primary barriers to housing affordability and safety. These findings reinforce what women with lived experience have been saying for years: housing policy that ignores gender will continue to fail.
Why this matters now
Anti-feminist ideology is not just cultural background noise—it actively shapes decisions about whose safety matters, whose needs are prioritized, and what kinds of housing get built. When gendered safety considerations are dismissed, the consequences can be severe, including increased exposure to harassment, exploitation, and violence within housing environments.
This is why WNHHN urged FEWO and the federal government to take concrete action. In our submission, we called for:
- An enhanced, housing-specific Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) framework, rooted in Indigenous knowledge and developed with people who have lived experience of housing insecurity.
- A minimum allocation of 40% of affordable and deeply affordable housing units developed through federal investments—such as Build Canada Homes and CMHC—for women, Two-Spirit, trans, and gender-diverse people.
These are not abstract recommendations. They are necessary steps to ensure that federal housing investments do not reproduce the same inequities that have pushed women and gender-diverse people into crisis in the first place.
Moving forward
If Canada is serious about upholding the right to housing, we must be equally serious about confronting the ideologies that undermine it. Countering anti-feminist narratives in housing policy is about more than representation—it is about safety, dignity, and survival.
WNHHN will continue to press for housing systems that reflect the lived realities of women and gender-diverse people, and for federal policies that recognize gender justice as fundamental to solving the housing crisis.