🍁 civid v1

Status

• Bill C-205 was introduced at first reading on June 10, 2025. It would amend the National Housing Strategy Act.

Housing strategy and encampments

• The strategy would have to establish measures to prevent the removal of homeless encampments on federal land and identify alternatives, following meaningful engagement with encampment residents.
• The bill defines an encampment as an outdoor settlement of one or more temporary structures used as a residence by people experiencing homelessness. Federal land includes land belonging to Canada or that Canada has the power to dispose of, along with its waters and airspace.
• The strategy would also have to provide terms of reference for participatory processes and expressly include Indigenous peoples and people with lived experience of homelessness in those processes.

Indigenous involvement

• The bill would add to Canada’s housing policy a commitment concerning the active involvement of Indigenous peoples in determining and developing housing programs that affect them.
• The strategy would need processes to support Indigenous peoples’ active involvement in developing culturally appropriate housing-related programs and to ensure that encampment responses respect their rights.
• The minister would have to consult provincial housing representatives and consult and collaborate with a variety of organizations representing Indigenous interests when establishing the encampment measures and related processes.
• Other provisions would expressly include Indigenous peoples in the Act’s participation and monitoring provisions.

Reporting

• The triennial report on the strategy’s effectiveness would have to include success metrics developed in consultation and collaboration with organizations representing Indigenous interests.
• It would also have to include longitudinal data, disaggregated by groups to the extent possible, including vulnerable groups, Indigenous peoples and people with lived experience of housing need or homelessness.

Costs and deadlines

• The provided text specifies no new cost figures or implementation deadline.