Not Homeless Enough: When Housing Rights Exist More on Paper Than in Reality

 Not Homeless Enough: When Housing Rights Exist More on Paper Than in Reality

Yesterday I received another job rejection letter.

Ironically, it was connected to homelessness services.

I was told I did not have enough “cumulative lived experience.”

And honestly, sitting there reading it, I could not help thinking: What exactly qualifies someone as “homeless enough” in Canada now?

Do you have to sleep in a tent? Lose everything? End up in the hospital? Become completely broken before your experiences count?

Because many people are surviving in invisible ways: Couch surfing. Living in unstable housing. Living in fear of losing housing. Staying in unhealthy situations because rents are impossible. Skipping food to pay rent. Aging without security. Working precarious jobs while one emergency could collapse everything.

One of the hardest realizations for me has been discovering the difference between something being called a “human right” and something actually being protected in real life.

I was naive.

I truly believed that because housing is connected to Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it meant governments were legally required to ensure people had safe housing.

I thought it was law.

Instead, I am learning that rights on paper and rights in reality are not the same thing.

Abe Oudshoorn’s 2025 article, “The Temptations of Trite: How Policymakers Avoid Addressing Homelessness as a Structural Challenge,” talks about this exact issue. The article argues governments often symbolically recognize housing rights while failing to create enforceable systems that truly protect people.

Meanwhile homelessness continues growing.

And what hurts the most is realizing society spends enormous amounts of money managing homelessness through shelters, hospitals, policing, courts, and prisons — while still not building enough deeply affordable housing to prevent people from falling into crisis in the first place.

We keep hearing there is “no money.”

Yet there always seems to be money for luxury towers, mega-projects, infrastructure expansion, developer incentives, and temporary emergency responses after people are already suffering.

The article points out that supportive housing can cost less than emergency shelters, hospital stays, and incarceration.

So why are we still doing this backwards?

I think many ordinary people assumed, like I did, that in a wealthy country basic human needs would be protected.

But more and more Canadians are discovering how fragile stability really is.

You can work hard your whole life and still end up one illness, one rent increase, one caregiving responsibility, one layoff, or one personal crisis away from losing everything.

Housing should not only exist for speculation and profit.

Housing is health. Housing is safety. Housing is dignity. Housing is survival.

And maybe one of the cruelest parts of this crisis is how often people are told they are either: “not struggling enough” to qualify for help, or “too broken” to recover easily once they finally do.

Reflective Questions:

1. At what point does housing insecurity become “serious enough” for society to respond compassionately?

2. Why do so many people experiencing instability remain invisible until they reach absolute crisis?

3. Should access to housing support depend on proving extreme suffering?

4. Why does society often spend more money reacting to homelessness than preventing it?

5. How many working Canadians are only one emergency away from housing insecurity?

6. What happens psychologically when people are repeatedly told their struggles are “not enough”?

7. Why are luxury developments expanding while deeply affordable housing remains scarce?

8. Should housing be treated primarily as an investment commodity or as a human necessity?

9. What would a society look like if prevention and dignity were prioritized over crisis management?

10. If housing is recognized as a human right internationally, why is it still so inaccessible for so many people?#HousingCrisis, #Homelessness, #AffordableHousing, #HousingIsAHumanRight, #PovertyInCanada, #SeniorsInPoverty, #InvisibleHomelessness, #CanadaHousing, #SocialJustice, #EndHomelessness