Thank you.
Good morning. I'm Joanne Thompson, the member of Parliament for St. John's East. I'm delighted to be in Fredericton today. I'm actually quite pleased to speak to both of you.
I may start with you, Mayor Black, and Mr. Boyd, I certainly want to circle to you.
I spent many years in the not-for-profit sector in housing, homelessness and wraparound health care support. I have to shout out that during COVID, when we were absolutely struggling for support, there was a centre in Fredericton that was absolutely phenomenal with the information it was able to provide to me on emergency shelter at that time.
I'm very familiar with the concerns that both of you have expressed, but I'll stay with you now, Mayor Black. It's almost as though we're speaking about the same place, even though they're clearly different provinces.
One of the concerns I have when we oversimplify and politicize this issue is that we really take away from the complexity of the current housing crisis, as well as the link—I thank you for making that link—to the health determinants and mental health addictions, which we know are challenging. COVID has created another space in terms of the drugs that we're seeing and the mental health crisis. If there was a simple fix, I don't think we'd be having this conversation today.
One of the things I learned very clearly in my years in this sector was that layers of federal-municipal and provincial-municipal collaboration are needed to move projects forward, and there's the community sector as well. What I haven't been able to find is a really smooth, collaborative spirit among all of those sectors.
What I continue to be challenged by is the lack of understanding that this is a continuum of need from what I call the entry point to the point of self-actualization, where you have market participation in housing. I think there are seven entry points. Some say nine, but let's say there are seven entry points in how we match an understanding of actual numbers within a province for housing needs.
Why are we still—and I believe we're in a crisis point with this—struggling with separate municipalities and provincial governments in one place? We're losing that coordinated response.
What's your sense of that, and what is it that we can do to pull it together? To tackle the problem, you have to have a comprehensive solution. Other than that, we're going to continue to apply band-aids.