Across Canada, women, Two-Spirit, trans, and gender-diverse people with disabilities are being failed by our housing system.
Despite Canada’s commitments under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), accessible, affordable housing remains out of reach for far too many.
The Women’s National Housing and Homelessness Network (WNHHN) recently submitted recommendations to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as part of the development of new guidelines on discrimination against women with disabilities. Read the submission here.
Our findings are clear: Canada is in violation of multiple CRPD articles, including the rights to equality, accessibility, and freedom from violence.
There is still time to make a submission to the committee. The deadline is October 15.
The Reality in Canada
-
Nearly half of Canadian women who have experienced homelessness have either had or continue to live with a disability.
-
WNHHN’s Pan-Canadian Women’s Housing & Homelessness Survey shows 79% of women facing housing insecurity or homelessness reported a disability, with almost half identifying a psychiatric or mental health disability.
-
Shelter and housing programs remain overwhelmingly inaccessible, forcing many into unsafe or invisible forms of housing.
These barriers are not accidental—they are the product of systemic ableism, gender inequality, and underfunded disability supports. The result is a cycle of poverty, homelessness, and violence.
Key Issues
-
Intimate partner violence and disability are deeply connected: women with disabilities are four times more likely to experience sexual assault.
-
Accessibility and affordability gaps force people to choose between unsafe but affordable housing or accessible but unaffordable options.
-
Rural communities face compounded challenges, with inaccessible transportation and healthcare isolating women with disabilities even further.
-
The Canada Disability Benefit (CDB), while a step forward, is deeply inadequate—covering too few people, at rates too low, and clawed back by provinces.
What Needs to Change
WNHHN is calling on Canada to:
-
Reform the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) by increasing benefit rates, expanding eligibility, and addressing provincial clawbacks that reduce effective support.
-
We echo calls from other disability justice groups calling for universal design principles to be incorporated in the National Building Code to make universal design mandatory in all new multi-unit residential buildings, both rental and ownership.
-
Allocate funding to retrofit existing shelters and housing stocks to meet accessibility standards, addressing physical, sensory, and cognitive needs.
-
Increase funding for accessibility supports and accessible public transportation, particularly in rural areas.
-
Ensure violence against women (VAW) programs and homeless shelters are fully accessible to people with physical, cognitive, and sensory disabilities.
-
Decouple CDB eligibility from DTC to remove structural barriers to access.
-
Index provincial disability benefits above the poverty line and allow income stacking to improve financial stability for people with disabilities.
The Path Forward
Housing is a human right. Yet for women and gender-diverse people with disabilities, Canada’s housing system continues to deny dignity, safety, and independence. By implementing these changes, Canada has the opportunity to lead globally in realizing the CRPD—and, more importantly, to uphold the basic rights of those most impacted by the housing crisis.
The deadline for the call for written submissions on the draft guidelines on addressing multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination against women and girls with disabilities has been extended to October 15. Learn more here.