Neha Review panel
Neha will examine the right to housing for women, Two Spirit, trans, and gender-diverse people, and the government’s duty to uphold this right.
The written dialogue (hearing) for Neha is now open!
By providing a written submission, individuals with lived experience (or organizations representing them) can share stories, present evidence, and provide testimony of violations to the right to housing for women, Two-Spirit, Trans, and gender-diverse people across Canada.
The written submission portal will remain open until March 14, 2025. All evidence and testimony gathered from this review will help shape the final recommendations the review panel will send to the federal government—in which they must respond to within 120 days.
You can make a submission by email, mail, or online portal.
Background
Neha is based on two powerful Human Rights Claims submitted by the Women’s National Housing & Homelessness Network (WNHHN) and the National Indigenous Women’s Housing Network (NIWHN).
These human rights claims spotlight violations of the right to housing experienced by marginalized women, gender-diverse, and Two Spirit people across the country, and calls for immediate action.
After receiving these claims, the Federal Housing Advocate directed the National Housing Council to launch a new review panel on the Government of Canada’s failure to prevent and eliminate homelessness amongst women and gender-diverse people, and particularly those who are Indigenous.
This issue has reached such a crisis point that the Federal Housing Advocate now recognizes it as one of the top human rights issues in Canada.
Sylvia Maracle
Pamela Glode Desrochers
Marie Pascaline Menono
Neha review Panel Members
As outlined in the National Housing Strategy Act, a review panel must consist of three members of the National Housing Council. The panel members should collectively bring human rights expertise, lived experience of marginalization, and lived experience of inadequate housing or homelessness.
The members of the Neha review panel are Sylvia Maracle, Pamela Glode Desrochers, and Marie Pascaline Menono.
Become a Community Champion
Review panels are a human rights-based process that provides the public the opportunity to share their stories on systemic housing issues across Canada and help shape its solutions—this is why participation from those with lived experience is so critical.
To help make Neha more accessible, our partners at the Women’s National Housing & Homelessness Network (WNHHN) and the National Indigenous Women’s Housing Network (NIWHN) have created a Community Champion program that will provide:
- Templates and training opportunities to make submissions
- Resources to support your local community’s organizing efforts
- Financial stipends to encourage participation (open to those with lived experience)
Join the over 70+ Community Champions who have already signed up!
“[Neha] will give people with lived experience of gender-based homelessness and housing precarity—as well as frontline and civil society allies—an opportunity to share their experiences and solutions, and hold the government accountable in a way that was not possible before.”
Overview of Review Panels
Neha will be the second human rights-based review panel to ever be conducted in Canada.
Review panels like Neha are critical human rights-based processes —introduced under Canada’s right to housing legislation of 2019, the National Housing Strategy Act (NHSA)—designed to bring the voices of those most impacted by the housing crisis to be part of the solutions.
Review panels rely on public participation from individuals and communities, and involves multiple open hearings (written and oral) to gather evidence of systemic human rights violations in housing that will be used to create human rights-based findings and recommendations directed to the Government of Canada.
Neha Review Panel Q&A
At the previous review panel, the panel hosted both a written hearing and virtual oral hearings. With Neha, the panel will conduct “dialogue” sessions, in which oral sessions will take place in select locations in-person and/or through a virtual format. This oral phase will aim to provide a safe, inclusive, culturally-appropriate and supportive space for the participants to share their knowledge and expertise on the issue. In addition to this oral phase of the review, the panel may also conduct a written phase.
We should expect the oral dialogue to be announced after the written dialogue has concluded, sometime in 2025.
Check out the National Housing Council’s Terms of Reference to learn more.
You can learn more about Neha on their official website here.
You can also read their Terms of Reference, which outlines their scope of work and key information on the Neha approach.
Canada’s first-ever review panel was on the financialization of purpose-built rental housing. You can learn more about this review panel here.
To learn more about review panels overall, click here.
The National Right to Housing Network would like to thank the following funders and organizations for making our work around the review panel possible:
