Latest News
Housing Minister Responds to Neha Review Panel
Background:
On November 24, 2025, the Neha Review Panel submitted its final report and recommendations to the Honourable Gregor Robertson, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure, marking a pivotal moment in Canada’s commitment to gender and racial equity in housing. The reports focus on the right to safe, adequate and affordable housing for women, Two Spirit, Trans, and gender-diverse people, and the government’s duty to uphold this right. Upon listening to the people impacted, the Neha review panel concludes that Canada is not fulfilling all the conditions to realize the right to housing in Canada in an inclusive, gender-responsive, and human rights-based manner.
Read the historic reports here.
How did we get here?
On June 14, 2022, the Women’s National Housing & Homelessness Network (WNHHN) and the National Indigenous Women’s Housing Network (NIWHN) submitted two Human Rights Claimsto the Federal Housing Advocate. The claims spotlight violations of the right to housing experienced by marginalized women and gender-diverse people across the country, calling for immediate action.
On June 14, 2022, the Women’s National Housing & Homelessness Network (WNHHN) and the National Indigenous Feminist Housing Working Group submitted two Human Rights Claims to the Federal Housing Advocate.
We came together to utilize the new procedures under the National Housing Strategy Act to claim our right to housing and our right to substantive equality. Our Claims spotlight violations of the right to housing experienced by marginalized women and gender-diverse people across the country, calling for immediate action. We are here to claim a better future for ourselves, our children, our communities, and the planet. We will no longer accept the unacceptable.
We call on the Government of Canada to fully realize our human right to housing and be held accountable for the human rights violations being perpetrated against us.
The Crisis Ends with Us: Request for a Review into the Systemic Denial of the Equal Right to Housing of Women and Gender-Diverse People in Canada
The Government of Canada’s failure to adequately address housing need and homelessness has manufactured a national human rights crisis for marginalized women and gender-diverse people. It has trapped us in situations of abuse and exploitation, separated us from our children, deepened our poverty, dislocated us from our lands and traditions, and eroded our dignity and self-determination. In some cases it has cost us our lives.
Canadian housing policy continues to prioritize profit over our right to a dignified life, to security, and to substantive equality. We disproportionately bear the consequences of the financialization of housing, but those of us who suffer most are rarely at decision-making tables or understood as rights-holders. Every day we watch the existing affordable housing stock dwindle at a rapidly escalating pace, driven by forces we cannot control, and decision-makers who do not hear our voices.
We see no future for ourselves in the current housing regime.
This Human Rights Claim, developed by the WNHHN Human Rights Task Force, articulates three key violations of the right to housing experienced by marginalized women and gender-diverse people across Canada:
- Violation 1: Failure to provide adequate, accessible, and affordable housing
- Violation 2: Failure to prevent and eliminate homelessness amongst women and gender-diverse people
- Violation 3: Failure to regulate the financialization of housing in alignment with the right to housing
Homeless on Homelands: Upholding Housing as a Human Right for Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit, and Gender-diverse People
In the context of inherent Indigenous rights, the National Housing Strategy Act (NHSA) emerges as a critical instrument that can be utilized to challenge colonial policies and mechanisms that attempt to displace Indigenous women, girls, Two-Spirit, and gender-diverse people from “their proper power and place.”
This Human Rights Claim, developed by the National Indigenous Feminist Housing Working Group, articulates four key violations of our inherent rights that must be reviewed by the Federal Housing Advocate:
- Violation 1: Lack of Action on the Calls to Justice from the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Report and Calls to Action from the Truth Reconciliation Commission Report
- Violation 2: Failure to Provide Safe, Adequate and Culturally-Appropriate Housing, on Our Own Terms
- Violation 3: Interjurisdictional Neglect, Multiple Systems Failure, and Institutional Betrayal
- Violation 4: Security of Tenure under NHS and Secure Indigenous Land Tenure
Infographics: The Right to Housing for Women and Gender-Diverse People
Looking for a quick overview? Check out the infographics below! These resources are based on a lecture that we gave at Wilfrid Laurier University discussing the Right to Housing for women & gender-diverse people, as well as the significance of our claims.
