END HOUSING ALIENATION NOW!
Housing in c\a\n\a\d\a is characterized by unaffordability, disrepair, under-housing, precarity, and homelessness. This is housing alienation—the condition of being separated from our fundamental connections to home. It separates us from the land we inhabit, the social world that supports us, and our full creative lives. We are Architects Against Housing Alienation and we believe the current housing system in c\a\n\a\d\a must be abolished!
The transformation of land and homes into profit-generating commodities has caused alienation. This condition began with colonial land dispossession. When European settlers arrived in c\a\n\a\d\a, they began a process that not only violently took land away from Indigenous peoples, but also attacked Indigenous ways of knowing and doing. Through this encounter, land became conceptualized as private property, reserved for the exclusive use of its owner and yet easily exchanged, throwing something as rooted as land into circulation. We use Sim’oogit Saa-Bax Patrick Stewart’s backslashes in c\a\n\a\d\a to refer to these originating land divisions and separations. c\a\n\a\d\a is divided by property lines and separated by the drive for profit over the connection to place.
Today, homes are designed to be exchangeable assets. They follow the rules of real estate speculation so that they can store wealth and be easily traded for profit, resulting in environments that are racist, sexist, and classist. Housing alienation disproportionately robs the working class, women, and racialized people of their power to determine for themselves the means of their survival and flourishing. Profit-driven housing production depends on exploitative labour practices and the degradation of the environment through unsustainable construction and resource extraction.
We seek to end housing alienation by rebuilding connections to land, to community, and to creative self-determination. As activists, advocates, and architects, we are working collaboratively to create the political will, economic and policy frameworks, and designs for housing that are socially, ecologically, and creatively empowering for all.
To end housing alienation in c\a\n\a\d\a, we demand:
1. Land Back: We demand that all land c\a\n\a\d\a claims for the “crown” be returned to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Peoples as Indigenous land.
2. On the Land Housing: We demand on-the-land, off-grid communities for Indigenous women and girls with access to safe, secure, affordable, culturally relevant wrap around support services.
3. First Nations Home Building Lodges: We demand Home Building Design Lodges tied to housing manufacturing facilities on reserves, to build capacity within communities by grounding the production of houses and their components, in community values, language, and education.
4. Reparative Architecture: We demand reparative architecture for the Black residents who have been displaced or are at the risk of being displaced due to state-led gentrification. We demand the state provide reparations by funding Black-led community land trusts for the creation of affordable housing and commercial space.
5. A Gentrification Tax: We demand a Gentrification Tax to capture the unearned increment of value to build and secure deeply affordable housing within a community land trust.
6. Surplus Properties for Housing: We demand that all levels of government make available surplus public property assets for the development of affordable housing and the public good that is not for sale—not now and not in the future!
7. Intentional Communities for Unhoused People: Across c\a\n\a\d\a, there is a rapidly expanding gap between “living rough” on the street or in self-made encampments and gaining access to long-term housing. To support unhoused people, cities must use underutilized land to fund and build intentional communities where residents receive services, share community responsibilities, and regain agency to govern space and their lives.
8. Collective Ownership: We demand that municipalities incorporate guidelines that prioritize co-living, cooperative, and co-housing over speculative real estate development and that credit unions and banks remove roadblocks and create pathways to cooperative financing models.
9. Mutual Aid Housing: We demand housing for mutual aid in the urban core, where density and supportive programming respond to existing needs, foster community-building, and provide culturally appropriate support to refugees. Large-scale development will foster cooperative support among people of diverse backgrounds and experiences.
10. Ambient Ecosystem Commons: We demand a vision and participatory process for housing development that upholds ambient urban ecosystems as a continuously accessible commons necessary for social housing. This process must lead to concrete action to improve the ambient commons.
For more information about the campaign go to aaha.ca.
Architects Against Housing Alienation curatorial collective & organizing committee:
Adrian Blackwell, David Fortin, Matthew Soules, Sara Stevens, Sim’oogit Saa-Bax Patrick Stewart, Tijana Vujosevic.
Activist – Architect – Advocate Teams:
Campaign collaborators: Chris Lee Graphic Designer; Ali S. Qadeer Web Designer; Vince Tao Campaign Strategist; Marie-Espérance Cerda Film Producer and Editor; Ryan Sudds Hoarding Graphic; Housing Solidarity Network Community Collaborator; Grey Piitaapan Muldoon “Banners for Fugitives” Artist; Tamara Andruszkiewicz Project Logistics; Cory Zurell Structural Consultant; David Kalman, Josephine Li, Piero Sovrani, Noa Wang, Donald Zhu, Project Research + Design Team; Kara Crabb, Anaïs Trembling, Lee-Ann Kam, Emily Chee, Valentina Aguayo Martiri, Jenny Chen, Youngjin Kim, Alex Li Social Media Team; Emelie Chhangur, Brendan Cormier, Cheryl L’Hirondelle Curatorial Consultants. Hannah Roorda Post-Venice Project Manager.
Gracious support and collaboration of Ron Kellett, Tamara Ross, Tracy Satterfield, Emma Fennell, Maya Przybylski, Julie Dring, Marie McGregor Pitawanakwat, Chinook Song Catchers, Robyn Adams
Commissioner: Canada Council for the Arts
Primary Presenting Sponsor: University of British Columbia School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
Co-presenting Sponsor: University of Waterloo, School of Architecture
Sponsors: Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC), Ontario Association of Architects (OAA), Architecture Foundation British Columbia (AFBC), Fedrigo Fratelli
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