Despite growing evidence as to their effect on health outcomes, housing issues have not been high on the agenda of most health researchers in Canada and the
the federal government and many provincial governments have withdrawn from the provision of social housing over the last decade. The purpose of this article is to consider how housing insecurity in Canada can be conceptualized as a social determinant of health. In 1986, the World Health Organization’s Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion recognized shelter as a basic prerequisite for health, but it is only recently that researchers have focused on housing as an important determinant of health. Reasons for the neglect of housing as a health issue will be considered, and studies that demonstrate the link between housing and health will be reviewed. The current housing crisis and associated housing insecurity being experienced by Canadians are the results of radical changes in housing policy over the last two decades. The problem of affordability in the private rental housing market first emerged as a major issue in the early 1980s, and it remained for the most part not addressed through the 1990s. Housing is now seen as a national disaster. The federal government has even appointed a Co-ordinator of Homelessness.