Affordable housing activists are applauding the United Nations for giving Canada “a boot in the butt” for failing to live up to its international obligations to protect vulnerable Canadians.

In a report released Monday, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights expressed “concern about the persistence of a housing crisis” in Canada and called on Ottawa to bring in a national housing strategy that recognizes the right to housing.

The committee also urged Canada to ensure homeless people and other disadvantaged groups have access to the judicial system when they feel their rights are being violated.

“They were very courteous to Canada,” said Mike Creek of the Right to Housing Coalition, which held a news conference outside federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s downtown Toronto constituency office Monday.

“They gave Canada — in the nicest possible way — a boot in the butt and told them to get moving on these issues,” said Creek, a formerly homeless Toronto man, now working as an anti-poverty advocate.

Creek and lawyer Kenneth Hale took the coalition’s failed “right to housing” Charter challenge to the UN committee in Geneva last month for the 10-year review of Canada’s compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights.

They were joined by more than two dozen other Canadian groups concerned about the country’s inaction on homelessness, poverty and other social problems.

“I think the committee really listened to the Canadian non-governmental organizations across the spectrum ... and took our concerns seriously,” said Hale, legal director of the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, a legal aid clinic serving tenants.

“I think the committee really saw that we have fallen down in some of our social areas and really need a little kick in the pants to get going.”

The group will use the UN report to press Ottawa and Queen’s Park to live up to their obligations to make sure people have a decent place to live, which is the foundation for other human rights, Hale added.

“This is an important body and important document and it’s important that the government of Canada begin to take it more seriously in the application of its own laws,” Hale said.

A spokeswoman for Morneau said the minister appreciates the coalition’s advocacy in Toronto Centre and across the province and “has a plan to help the middle class and those working hard to join it.”

Federal Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, one of three cabinet ministers tasked with developing a national affordable housing strategy, is reviewing the UN report, a spokesman said.

A spokesman for Ontario Housing Minister Ted McMeekin said Queen’s Park is “committed to building a strong housing and homelessness-prevention system that meets the needs of Ontarians,” including last year’s 10-year commitment to end homelessness in the province.

“We look forward to working with the federal government and other provinces and territories in developing a national housing strategy that is flexible enough to address local priorities,” said Mark Cripps.

Leilani Farha, of Canada Without Poverty, who also travelled to Geneva, welcomed the call to open up Canadian courts to the disadvantaged.

“Without access to justice, those who are homeless, as well as the most vulnerable in society, are left with no recourse to assert or claim their rights,” she said in a statement. “This absence has resulted in increasing unaffordability, visible and invisible homelessness, rising poverty and ultimately a silencing of the most marginalized who were left voiceless and ignored.”

Homelessness By the Numbers:

40: Approximate percentage of renter households facing serious housing affordability issues in Canada;

168,711: Number of Ontario households on wait lists for affordable housing;

4 years: The average wait time for an affordable housing unit in Ontario;

235,000: Number of Canadians who experience homelessness every year;

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35,000: Number of Canadians homeless on any given night;

794: Number of people who have died on Toronto streets since 1985 and are listed on the city’s Homeless Memorial.