The BC Rental Housing Coalition is pleased to submit this paper to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s (CMHC) Human Rights-Based Approach to Housing consultation for the National Housing Strategy. This response represents the views of a broad spectrum of rental housing stakeholders in British Columbia who have an interest in placing housing at the centre of its communities, given its importance to the social and economic fabric of the province and the country.
The focus of this submission is to provide feedback on the discussion paper: A Human Rights-Based Approach to Housing developed by CMHC to generate discussion on how to embed a human rights-based approach into the National Housing Strategy. Fundamentally, a rights-based strategy needs to recognize the right to adequate housing, and the delivery of the appropriate type and supply of housing required to address current housing inequities. As such, this response focuses on providing feedback and making policy recommendations to meet that end. A number of the members of the Rental Housing Coalition also participated in the May 8, 2018 Human Rights Bases Approach to Housing: National Roundtable in Vancouver BC.