Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to be here today.
My name is Ken Elliott. I am the president of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada. I live in the Eastwood Housing Co-op in Woodstock, New Brunswick, where for the last 15 years I've had the privilege of raising my children as a single parent and experiencing first-hand what a community, in particular a co-op community, is all about.
Cooperative housing in Canada is a success story dating back almost 40 years. Today, housing co-ops provide over 90,000 safe, secure, affordable homes for over a quarter of a million Canadians in every province and territory. Many of them are in all of your ridings.
About 40% of these households use federal or provincial assistance, paying rents that are set at an affordable level according to their income. Other households pay market rents. Housing co-ops are mixed-income communities and provide good, affordable rental homes for the working poor, seniors, young families, and middle-income households.
But there is an increasing need for more cooperative housing, particularly in the major urban centres. We believe cooperative housing could provide ongoing affordable homes for some of the 1.4 million Canadians spending more than they can afford for housing. The housing market has failed these people, and the government needs to intervene to provide this assistance. We're asking for government policies that will allow some of the funds flowing through the provinces for housing to be used to create more new cooperative housing.
What's more, we can provide an opportunity for more affording housing in our own existing cooperative housing stock. These co-ops could have the ability to subsidize more households, but unfortunately they do not have access to the federal subsidy intended in the program. Because of a flaw in the administration of the program, the subsidy co-ops receive is lower than it should be. Restoring this lost subsidy to these federally funded housing cooperatives would be a simple, effective, and quick way to create more affordable housing across Canada, as would making additional rent supplements available.
In closing, we strongly recommend that the following initiatives be included in the 2007 federal budget: one, federal funds to support the development of new housing cooperatives, or the addition of new units in existing co-ops delivered through the provinces and territories through capital grants or forgivable loans; two, allocation of funds to the provinces and territories that can be used to provide rent supplements to existing housing co-ops and allow existing housing co-ops to accommodate more low-income households; three, new capital funding that will fix leaky co-ops in British Columbia and housing co-ops in Quebec that were developed under the stringent modesty criteria; four, continued funding for other initiatives that address homelessness, such as the Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative, SCPI.
Affordable housing should be considered part of the infrastructure needed for healthy, safe neighbourhoods and cities. Housing cooperatives are ready to work with you to make this happen.
Thank you.