The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) is calling on municipalities across Ontario to review their zoning and rental licensing bylaws to eliminate barriers to housing services for people with mental health issues or addictions. 
Barbara Hall, the OHRC’s chief commissioner, delivered the message in a recent speech to municipal staff, council members and the public at the Midland Public Library.
“Talking about zoning, housing and bylaws in terms of human rights is pretty new,” Hall said, noting many recent instances of systemic discrimination arose because “people did things the way ‘we have always done’.”
She cited one of the recommendations made in Minds That Matter, a recent OHRC report on the human rights issues experienced by people with mental health disabilities or addictions.
The recommendation urges municipalities “to remove non-legitimate requirements that apply to housing or services for people with mental health disabilities that do not apply to other housing or services.
“From its very beginning in 1962, the Human Rights Code talked about human rights in housing,” Hall said. “In those days the concerns were about discrimination in housing based on colour and religion. If you were black or Jewish there were many neighbourhoods where you were simply not welcome.
Today – as most people know, or should know – it’s against the law to refuse housing to someone based on their religion or the colour of their skin or for any grounds on the Human Rights Code.
“Despite this, the complaints still come in. Some are about direct discrimination, such as a landlord telling someone: ‘I don’t want to rent to your kind.’
“Others reflect systemic discrimination,” she said, “barriers built right into the system often without people understanding what those barriers are and what they mean.
“They could be zoning bylaw amendment that places restrictions on the location of accessory apartments. While it might be designed to spread housing around, it in fact limits the housing options for many vulnerable people protected under the Code.
“Whether discrimination is direct or systemic, whether it is intentional or accidental, it has a powerful impact on the people experiencing it.
“That’s why the OHRC is working with municipalities and other sectors to look at their organizations and decisions they make, and to help them find and get rid of discrimination wherever it exists,” Hall said.
“We provide the tools to help you do that in our guide In the Zone: Housing, human rights and municipal planning, which offers an overview of the human rights responsibilities of municipalities in housing.”
She said the guide was written to capture themes and help send a message to every municipality in Ontario. The themes include:
• The legal obligation to take steps to overcome discriminatory opposition to affordable housing;
• Focussing on legitimate land use planning, looking at things like parking, built form, infrastructure — like sewers and roads — instead of ‘people zoning’. In other words, not using zoning to keep people out of neighbourhoods;
• Making sure public meetings focus on planning issues, not the people who live in the housing;
• Not using minimum separation distances to limit housing options for people protected under code grounds.
“Many of the recommendations we make to comply with the code are different from the approach many municipalities have traditionally used,” she said. She is encouraging people to read the guide, which is available at ohrc.on.ca.
Source: Midland Free Press.com