Action
This section is organized into two parts. The first is for those seeking to take action on advocacy. The second section is for housing providers looking to change the work they are doing to better support women and gender-diverse people that they are providing housing and services to.
1. Advocacy
Using Your Voice
What are you fighting for?
The first step to effective advocacy is understanding what you are asking for. The following links provide you some ideas to get you started.
- The Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing: Six Calls to Action (2022)
The PCVWH has been hosting a national symposium for organizations that serve women and gender-diverse people to advocate for better housing since 2017. Each year the symposium discusses and refines their calls to action which are designed to reflect the action that needs to be taken for every household led by women and gender-diverse people to have access to safe, affordable and appropriate housing.
- Implementation of the Right to Housing for Women, Girls, and Gender Diverse People in Canada (2021)
This comprehensive report provides 19 recommendations for government action on housing for women and gender-diverse people through the lens of Canada’s commitment to treat housing as a human right.
- This is Not a Home (2021)
This report was produced by several organizations across the country as a result of research with women and gender-diverse people with lived experience of precarious housing and homelessness. It covers recommendations for both housing providers and governments to take action.
How will you build support for your ask?
There are many different ways to advocate for housing. The tools below provide a starting place for individuals wanting to be more active in their communities.
- Join the Pan-Canadian Voice for Women’s Housing
PCVWH has partner organizations across the country, and can link you with other advocates in your community or, in communities without existing organizations, can support you to start organizing with others in your local community.
- Let governments know how you feel
This tool helps you contact your MP, MLA and local government elected officials and voice your support for safe, affordable and appropriate housing for women and gender-diverse people.
- Share your story
If you’re a woman or gender-diverse person who has experienced homelessness or unsafe housing, your story has the power to make change for others. This tool helps you easily connect with regional and national newspapers with a letter to the editor. To help you with your writing, check out these tips from Informed Opinions, a women-led communications firm.
- Start your own campaign
The Canadian Centre for Housing Rights produced this resource – Empowering Communities to Claim the Right to Housing: A Resource for Tenant Leaders – in 2023 to support increased advocacy for housing. It provides an excellent overview of the steps you can take to organize local advocacy. A couple of other resources that provide more broad information about effective advocacy are Organizing: People, Power and Change and the inspiring Beautiful Trouble Toolbox.
Webinar 4: Action
Successful advocacy campaigns centred on lived experience and effective coalition-building
In addition to these resources, check out the She.They.Us Voice webinar featuring Dawn Francois, Ellen Woodsworth and Adam Vaughan.
2. Guidance
For Housing Providers and Frontline Workers
If you work with a housing provider or are a frontline worker, there are immediate steps you can take to better align your work with the needs of women and gender-diverse people. The resources in this section can help.
- General
- Indigenous
- LGBTQ2S Youth
- Survivors of Gender-Based Violence
- Complex Homelessness
What We Heard: The Unique Housing Needs of Women (2019) – This engagement report outlines the key elements women need in housing.
Women-Centred Housing Design Toolkit (2023) – This dynamic online toolkit provides extensive information on both the needs women have for safe and appropriate housing, and step-by-step guides on how best to meet these needs in purpose-built long-term housing.
Engagement Toolkit: People with Lived Experience in BC’s Capital Region (2017) – This comprehensive guide is written primarily for frontline workers to better understand how to meaningfully include people experiencing homelessness in decisions that impact them.
What We Heard: The Unique Housing Needs of Women (2019) – This engagement report outlines the key elements women need in housing.
Women-Centred Housing Design Toolkit (2023) – This dynamic online toolkit provides extensive information on both the needs women have for safe and appropriate housing, and step-by-step guides on how best to meet these needs in purpose-built long-term housing.
Engagement Toolkit: People with Lived Experience in BC’s Capital Region (2017) – This comprehensive guide is written primarily for frontline workers to better understand how to meaningfully include people experiencing homelessness in decisions that impact them.
Indigenous Housing Solutions Labs: a new approach to tackling complex Indigenous housing challenges (2021)
This project report provides insight into the approach of using “solutions labs” as a process of reimagining how to build Indigenous-led housing solutions. It also outlines two cases that illustrate how the approach works in practice.
Indigenous Housing Solutions Labs: a new approach to tackling complex Indigenous housing challenges (2021)
This project report provides insight into the approach of using “solutions labs” as a process of reimagining how to build Indigenous-led housing solutions. It also outlines two cases that illustrate how the approach works in practice.
An extensive information and guidebook that provides insight into both the challenges and solutions for supporting LGBTQ2S youth in safe, affordable and appropriate housing.
An extensive information and guidebook that provides insight into both the challenges and solutions for supporting LGBTQ2S youth in safe, affordable and appropriate housing.
Getting Home Project: Overcoming barriers to housing after violence (2021)
This report outlines the findings of demonstration projects in four different contexts for improving housing outcomes for survivors of gender-based violence.
Getting Home Project: Overcoming barriers to housing after violence (2021)
This report outlines the findings of demonstration projects in four different contexts for improving housing outcomes for survivors of gender-based violence.
This guide provides a model for gender-specific, low barrier, supportive and permanent housing to meet the needs of women and gender-diverse people who access the women’s emergency shelter system and experience multiple years of homelessness.
This guide provides a model for gender-specific, low barrier, supportive and permanent housing to meet the needs of women and gender-diverse people who access the women’s emergency shelter system and experience multiple years of homelessness.
