The Red Tent Campaign — coming to Winnipeg on Oct. 19.
The first RTC action happened during the recent Winter Olympic Games. Taking advantage of the increased media attention on the city, Pivot purchased 500 tents which supporters set up near the Olympic Village to draw attention to Vancouver’s housing shortage.
Pivot staff lawyer Douglas King says the local campaign was so well-received, organizers decided to take it national.
"Your average person in Canada recognizes there’s a problem with housing and homelessness," he says. "They’re frustrated by the lack of action on the governmental levels, and the fact that there’s continual squabbling between levels of government about who’s responsible."
Housing is usually considered to be a provincial responsibility, but many advocates argue the federal government — which used to fund housing programs but began cutting funding and transferring oversight in the late ’80s and ’90s — needs to get back in the game.
To that end, the tents that will be set up on Oct. 19th are also meant to show public support for a private member’s bill that will be debated in the House of Commons on Oct. 20.
Bill C-304, the Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act, was introduced by Vancouver East NDP MP Libby Davies in April 2009. It calls for the establishment of a federal strategy that will ensure that the cost of housing in Canada "does not compromise an individual’s ability to meet other basic needs" such as food, clothing and access to education.
Unlike most private member’s bills (save for the recent attempt to scrap the gun registry), Bill C-304 survived two readings and debates and was poised to pass its final reading; however, Bloc Quebecois MPs withdrew their support this summer after an amendment they wanted added to the bill was denied. Without their votes, Bill C-304 will likely not pass.
The RTC will continue even if the bill dies, King says. "Our focus is on some sort of a national solution to the housing problem."
Locally, that problem was quantified by the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg in a 2009 report on homelessness. The report estimated that 1,500 to 2,000 Winnipeggers are homeless and noted that between February 2007 and December 2008, usage of Winnipeg’s emergency and transitional shelters increased by 50%.
Donald Benham is a senior associate at the SPWC, one of several organizations taking part in the local day of action. (Other confirmed participants include the Right to Housing coalition, Welcome Place and Winnipeg Harvest.)
"I don’t expect any immediate response from the federal Conservatives, but I do believe in the value of citizens making their views known," Benham says.
Most Canadians want to see responsible financial management from the federal government, he adds, but not at the expense of the country’s poor.
"What we need to do is find a way to balance the books and still live in a Canada that is humane and just," he says.
Approximately 350 of the tents used in the initial Vancouver action have since been given away to that city’s homeless population. Because of Winnipeg’s harsh weather, tents used locally in the Oct. 19 action will be props only and will not be given out afterwards.
• • •
The fact the Red Tent Campaign’s national day of action is taking place during the final days of the city’s election campaign is a happy coincidence for Winnipeggers who care about housing.
Brian Bechtel is one such person. He’s the executive director of the Main Street Project, an organization that provides an average of 26,000 emergency overnight shelter stays per year. It also has a detox unit (aka Winnipeg’s drunk tank) and is the only emergency shelter in the city that admits people who are intoxicated.
Bechtel wrote an excellent column in the Winnipeg Free Press on Oct. 5 called "Put homelessness on election agenda" in which he argues the city could be doing a lot more to alleviate homelessness, noting that cities such as Edmonton have 10-year plans with specific targets and timelines. He also suggested that increased attention on homelessness would help attract business development, writing that "people now often choose to work and start businesses where they want to live, and people don’t want to live in cities with visible large, unsettled, unhappy, chronically homeless people in a state of constant crisis any more than those people want to be homeless."
I called up Bechtel to ask him what he’d like to be hearing from mayoral candidates on this issue.
"If Winnipeg steps up to the plate and says, ‘We will at least play a catalyst role, we will convene the players,’ that would make me happy," he says. "I think that the province and the feds would probably do more if they saw the city come to the table."
He also thinks better awareness about the issue would inspire more Winnipeggers to care about it.
"I really believe that if most people could have even a bit of the experience that we have here — which is to know people on the human level and know what they’ve gone through, know what their circumstances are and know what they’re dealing with — I think a lot of people would see (homelessness) differently."
For what it’s worth, the Right to Housing coalition has listed a number of things the city can do to encourage the development of more affordable housing on its website, righttohousing.ca.
• • •
Fired up from my conversation with Bechtel, I listened with great interest at last week’s mayoral forum on downtown issues to incumbent mayor Sam Katz and challenger Judy Wasylycia-Leis speak about the need for more transitional housing units. Points to Katz for making the connection between chronic homelessness and mental illness. Points to Wasylycia-Leis for endorsing further transformation of downtown hotels into secure lodging for hard-to-house citizens.
Alas, save for a few vague remarks about working with the private and non-profit sectors, neither candidate articulated how exactly they would tackle homelessness if elected mayor, which made their statements sound more like platitudes than action plans.

Uptown