Waterloo Region Community Legal Services

Creating safer, more respectful workplaces means understanding that harassment can take many forms — and everyone deserves to feel safe and included at work. 🌿

Call SHAPE for free confidential legal information and advice at 1-833-677-5146.

We are so grateful to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Federal Housing Advocate for their important joint statement marking a significant milestone that affirms the human rights of people experiencing homelessness.

Read their full statement here: https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/resources/newsroom/important-milestone-affirms-human-rights-people-experiencing-homelessness

Are you a community worker in Ontario? Do you help clients who have housing-related problems? If so, you’re invited to a free, virtual conference on housing law.

At this virtual conference hosted by CLEO Legal Rights, you can:
➡️Learn from experts on how best to support your clients with their housing needs.
➡️Connect with service organizations across Ontario working to increase access to justice in housing.
➡️Ask questions and explore resources and tools for community workers during sessions.

For more info and registration visit:

Save the date: Housing law virtual conference Are you a community worker in Ontario? Do you help clients who have housing-related problems? If so, you’re invited to a free, virtual conference on housing law.

Our Executive Director, Ashley Schuitema, was featured on Toronto Today with Greg Brady, where she was interviewed by Greg Brady about our representation of several residents following the Premier’s comments on the court decision preventing the Region from clearing the Kitchener encampment.

Ontario Premier Slams Judge After Encampment Ruling Podcast Episode · Toronto Today with Greg Brady · May 25 · 11m

Whether it’s finding a different area of land for an encampment, or increasing temporary shelter beds, our community can’t keep relying on stop-gap solutions to the homelessness crisis.

In Canada, each of us have the Charter right to life, liberty, and security of person. This ruling makes clear that while encampments are “a refuge of last resort”, removing it without providing an alternative place to tent would violate that most basic right.

Even outside of this ruling - safe, permanent, and dignified housing for all isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s also the fiscally responsible choice. In our community, providing a shelter bed costs $6,000 per month, but affordable, supportive housing comes in at as little as just over $2,000 per month.

From The Working Centre to Indwell, to House of Friendship we have so many organisations in our community ready to build that housing.

The federal government has to step up: fix its own criteria so affordable housing funding builds truly affordable housing, and increase its investment to build new housing, and invest in mental health supports - moving us towards a future where all members of our community have stable housing.

Crown alleges judge “erred in law by engaging in myth-based and stereotypical reasoning about how a sexual assault complainant would behave in the doctor-patient context”

What’s happening in these encampments cannot be called humane.

No one is speaking honestly enough about the reality of the lives being lived there.

It is NOT humane to live surrounded by a rat infestation.
It is NOT humane to walk through rat urine or sleep beside rat f***s.
It is NOT humane to remain in a place where multiple people have already died.
It is NOT humane for young girls to be trafficked in plain sight.
It is NOT humane to live every day in a state of fear, hypervigilance, and survival mode.
It is NOT humane to be trapped in addiction with no real pathway out.
It is NOT humane to endure violence, untreated mental illness, and the harsh Canadian climate with no protection.

Judges, lawyers, and activists may speak about compassion and empathy, but we cannot pretend that what is happening right now is humanitarian. IT IS NOT. Allowing people to remain in conditions that we would never accept for ourselves, our families, or our neighbours is not compassion. It is abandonment dressed up as empathy.

As a society, we need to be honest: this is not working. We need solutions that are grounded in dignity, safety, and real support, not in maintaining the status quo because it feels morally comfortable. If we truly care about human rights, then we must be willing to do something different, because what we are doing now is failing the very people we claim to protect.

Three fantastic opinion pieces submitted by community members from New Hamburg, Kitchener, and Waterloo to the Waterloo Region Record. 📰

We’re grateful to see local voices speaking up, sharing their perspectives, and contributing to important conversations happening across our region.

"In his ruling, Justice Michael R. Gibson said the encampment is currently the only place in the region where people experiencing homelessness can legally set up a tent or structure and that it acts as a refuge of last resort."

“The judge found that it’s time to recognize homelessness as an analogous, charter-protected ground under Section 15. So, that means the governments are not allowed to discriminate against people because of their status of experiencing homelessness.” - Ashley Schuitema

“To see this result is amazing for our clients. And it’s amazing for people that are experiencing homelessness in our community.” - Ashley Schuitema