ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — The Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Commission says it has been inundated with people seeking help finding food and housing.
Hilary Hennessey, a commission spokesperson, says the number of people arriving at the St. John's office in crisis and in need of support has increased significantly over the last year.
The commission announced last week that it could no longer offer walk-in consultations because of increasing demand for its services.
Hennessey says staff do what they can to help even though access to housing and food fall outside the commission's mandate.
Tasha Stansbury, a PhD student at the University of Ottawa's law faculty, says Canada has signed on to international treaties guaranteeing people the right to food but it hasn't succeeded in ensuring that right can be enforced.
She says the people knocking on the human rights commission's door are another signal that governments need to live up to their commitment to uphold people's rights to housing and food.
"COVID-19 caused huge, huge, huge amounts of food and housing insecurity, and we haven't really recovered from that," she said in an interview. "The further you get from food and housing security, the harder it is to climb back."
Nadia Shivji, a lawyer with Dalhousie University's legal aid centre, says individuals would have more "leeway" to argue for their right to housing if the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms included poverty as a grounds for discrimination.
"As we're seeing more and more people who were previously -- quote unquote -- middle class, being thrust into that poverty line, particularly in terms of housing security, I think that probably is going to have to change," Shivji said in an interview.
At the Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Commission, Hennessy emphasized that the office's switch to appointment-only consultations won't deny anyone services. The small staff, she said, felt they weren't able to provide walk-in clients with the level of trauma-informed care they would like to offer, as they also juggle scheduled appointments and a case backlog.
The human rights commission is not an emergency service, even though everyone at the office wants to help, she added.
"It's been difficult not being able to support people through a complaint process or pre-complaint process, because we just don't have the jurisdiction to do so," she said. "We really sympathize with the situation that people are going through, and it does take an emotional toll."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 19, 2023.
