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CHF Canada’s Executive Director appointed to inaugural National Housing Council

Published November 23, 2020

A headshot of Tim Ross, a white man with short brown hair and glasses, wearing a suit and smiling.

Tim Ross

Yesterday, Ahmed Hussen, the federal minister responsible for housing announced the appointment of Tim Ross, CHF Canada’s Executive Director to the National Housing Council.

The National Housing Council has a mandate to monitor the effectiveness of the federal government’s National Housing Strategy, to provide advice to the Minister responsible for CMHC on how to improve housing outcomes, and support the progressive realization of the right to adequate housing as passed into law in the National Housing Strategy Act of 2019.

 

 


Here is a statement from Tim Ross on his appointment to the National Housing Council:

I am honoured to accept Minister Hussen’s invitation to join the inaugural National Housing Council and I look forward to working alongside such a diverse and qualified group of leaders from across the country to support the mandate of the Council.  

The housing crisis has been exacerbated by the pandemic, and the success of the National Housing Strategy is now more important than ever:

  • Today, over 1.6 million households are in core housing need, an estimated 35,000 people are homeless every night in Canada, and urban encampments of individuals experiencing homelessness are on the rise.
  • Indigenous individuals experience homelessness at a rate that is eleven times greater than the Canadian population.
  • Low- and moderate-income families are losing their housing at an astounding rate due to the financialization of housing. For every one unit of housing developed under the federal government’s National Housing Strategy, fifteen units are lost in the private market.

I look forward to advancing the unique contributions of the co-operative housing movement as a successful community based housing model that already provides affordable housing to a quarter of a million people across the country. Members of housing co-operatives build strong, diverse and inclusive housing communities. When people are in need of assistance, housing co-op members show up to help.

I join co-chairs Tim Richter and Evan Siddall in the belief that more people with lived experience of homelessness need to be on the Council. Furthermore, I believe it is imperative that the Council includes specific expertise in human rights and housing rights.

I look forward to gathering with my Council colleagues as quickly as possible in order to get to work. Canadians are counting on us to speak truth to power and to advocate for the right to housing for all.

– Tim Ross, Executive Director, Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada


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