Poor Housing

Across Canada, there is a severe shortage of affordable, decent-quality housing for people with low incomes, and the housing that is available to them is often appalling. The poor condition of housing for people living below the poverty line adds to the weight of the complex poverty they already endure and contributes to worsening health, adverse educational outcomes, and neighbourhoods that are prone to crime and violence. Using Winnipeg as an example, Poor Housing examines the real-life circumstances of low-income people who are forced to live in poor housing and the range of social and psychological issues they face: abusive, profit-hungry landlords, bedbugs, racism and discrimination to name but a few.This book also highlights the particular housing problems faced by Aboriginal people, newcomers, and individuals living in rooming houses. The book argues the the private, for-profit housing market does not and cannot meet the housing needs of low-income Canadians, and therefore governments must intervene and provide subsidies. But all levels of government have shown a consistent unwillingness to invest in decent housing for low-income people. Ironically, the social costs of poor housing and the associated symptoms of complex poverty are greater than the costs of investing in subsidized social housing and related anti-poverty measures. Finally, the authors describe a number of creative and successful housing strategies for low-income people in Winnipeg—Aboriginal housing co-ops, a revitalized 1960s-style public housing complex and an inner city church repurposed into supported social housing—that can serve as models for other cities