Justice for Girls has completed work on our housing strategy which is a roadmap for preventing girl homelessness and creating housing options for girls who are homeless.

Our main objective has been to build an informed strategy, led by young women who have experienced poverty, on how girl homelessness can be prevented and what housing options need to be available to girls who are inadequately housed/homeless. Through gathering information about girl homelessness from girls themselves and from activists and support persons who work with marginalized girls and women, we prepared the housing strategy.

Read More Than Bricks and Mortar: A Rights Based Strategy to Prevent Girl Homelessness in Canada.

The main focus of our work was to clearly define, through our interviews with girls and activists, and through reviewing research and gathering information, what a housing strategy for girls at risk of homelessness should look like.  We have always believed that solutions to girl homelessness must involve prevention of violence against girls, treatment for addictions, and access to education and human rights.  We are hoping that the housing strategy, by describing everything that has to come together for girls to truly be safe and housed decently, can affect people’s understanding of girl homelessness beyond the idea that a room alone is enough to stop girl homelessness.

In October 2005 we took statements on experiences of homelessness and inadequate housing from 17 young women from across Canada, to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing in Washington, DC.  We also submitted a report on girl homelessness in Canada to the Rapporteur.  The Rapporteur issued a final report on Women, Housing, and Land in February of 2006 in which he stated that girl homelessness is a national concern in Canada and that homeless girls as a group are particularly marginalized.