Thank you.
Good morning. Thank you for allowing us to participate in today's meeting.
I am a staff lawyer at the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario, or as we like to call ourselves, SALCO. SALCO's a not-for-profit organization established to enhance access to justice for low-income South Asians in the greater Toronto area. Since 1999, SALCO has been working to serve the growing needs of South Asians in a culturally and linguistically sensitive manner. Our mandate includes direct legal services, legal education, law reform, and community development work. We do a large volume of advocacy in gender-based violence work, and as a specialty clinic funded by Legal Aid Ontario, we provide advice, briefs, services, and legal representation in various areas of poverty law. Part of the work we do also includes advocacy in intersecting issues of poverty, including access to housing, income security, employment, and discrimination.
We have presented a paper here, I believe. I'm not sure if the committee has it in front of them. It was co-authored by the executive director of our clinic, Shalini Konanur. We're presenting that paper to you, focusing on the main points.
In keeping with the intersection of poverty and racialized people, racialized immigrants and immigrant communities have been among the most marginalized and socially excluded communities in Canada. Increasingly over time, social exclusion as experienced by racialized group members and immigrants manifests itself in the racialization of poverty and related issues, coupled with a decreasing level of socio-economic and political participation by the members of these groups, despite their growth in absolute numbers and in their percentage of the overall population of Canada.
Social exclusion as experienced by racialized and immigrant communities is a product of systemic and structural racism, which is prevalent in our society and little benefited by the corresponding governmental response, or lack thereof, to this fundamental problem. We therefore welcome the initiative by the Government of Canada in its review of Canada's poverty reduction strategy, with one of the four targeted areas being housing.
However, we believe that in order for a national housing strategy to be effective and inclusive, it is critical to understand the connection between race and poverty. Any conceptual framework employed by the Government of Canada in examining the housing crisis must be guided by a vision for equity that acknowledges the existence of the multi-faceted intersectional inequities in Canadian society.
While poverty can be a concern for anyone, its causes, forms, and consequences are not the same. Racialized immigrant communities experience disproportionate levels of property as a result of structural and systemic discrimination. Employment and Social Development Canada reported in the 2006 census that racialized communities faced higher levels of poverty. It showed that the poverty rate for racialized persons in Canada was 22%, compared with 9% for non-racialized persons.
Two-thirds of the racialized persons living in poverty are immigrants, and a further 8% are non-permanent residents. Almost half the population of racialized persons living in poverty are less than 25 years old, with 27% being 15 years old or less. In Toronto, 62% of all persons living in poverty were from racialized groups.
While racialized persons living in poverty in Canada are more likely to be highly educated, they are underemployed, more so than non-racialized persons living in poverty. Despite the higher levels of education reported among immigrants, poverty rates have been rising in this group and falling in the Canadian-born. In Toronto the number of racialized families living in poverty increased 362% between 1980 and the year 2000, while the poverty rate for non-racialized families dropped by 28% over the same time.
Income levels for racialized persons are significantly lower than for non-racialized persons. Racialized women are further marginalized, as they experience a higher level of poverty than racialized men. These women outnumber men by of 52% to 48%. With respect to employment, marginalized women's participation in the labour force is lower, and they have a higher unemployment rate.
I know I'm reading out a lot of numbers to you. Hopefully they will all make sense.
The higher levels of poverty render racialized persons and immigrants at a higher risk of homelessness. This is our focus in our submission to you.
People of colour accounted for 12% of Canadian households in 2006, and 53% of those people lived in Ontario.
Statistics Canada showed that in 2006 households of people of colour paid, on average, 29% more for shelter than a non-racialized household, and just over 50% of people of colour in Canadian households live in homes that are not affordable.
We've observed greater housing core needs since 2006. In Ontario in 2011, over 16% of immigrants had poor housing, compared to 10% of non-immigrants. However, approximately 30% of recent immigrants and non-permanent residents had core housing needs. It's not surprising, since one study found that most newcomers were spending more than 50% of their income on housing, with 15% of that group spending 75% or more of their income on housing.
A study on precarious housing and homelessness among refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants in Toronto published in December 2011 found that 83% of newcomers are renters. The study also revealed that one in three respondents reported their housing was in need of minor or major repairs and that overcrowding is a common occurrence, as well as poor maintenance and unhealthy housing.
The study we refer to also reported in December 2011 that half the refugee and asylum-seekers stayed in shelters at some point, which indicates this group is at a higher risk of homelessness.
Meeting the needs of vulnerable Canadians requires a conceptual framework that promotes equity and acknowledges these unique barriers. Based on that, we're making a number of recommendations.
The first is that we examine any policy or proposal through the race lens to ensure that the process and impact of any policy or proposal addresses the needs of racialized and immigrant communities who are at a higher risk of poverty.
The second is that we incorporate the collection and analysis of this aggregated data by race, gender, and other socio-demographic information into the development of national housing strategies and measurements and goals associated with such a strategy.
The third is that we include a rights-based approach that is guided by Canada's international obligations, including its commitment under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. I'm not going to read all of them. They are in front of you. We're referring to all the international obligations that Canada has committed to.
Another recommendation is that we engage a broader range of experts, including agencies that provide housing assistance to newcomers and racialized communities and seek their expertise—am I going over?