I couldn't agree more. However, I should flag something for you. We have work that's now under review for publication and the work we're doing with families in Toronto. Both of those pieces of work, one looking at the survey of household spending and the other working directly with low-income families, raise serious questions about our notion of affordable housing.
There is no question that the amount people spend on housing has a direct impact on what's left for food. As income deteriorates, that has a major implication. Conventionally, in Canada, as in many western countries, we've defined affordable housing as 30% of income going to housing. For people who are living in subsidized housing, it is structured in such a way that they are paying 30% of their income for housing. If their income is very low, 30% is too much. If those families are also on welfare, that's why we find high levels of food insecurity among families living in subsidized housing.
While subsidized housing is an incredibly important way to mitigate the ravages of low income, to enable low-income families to achieve basic nutrition needs, it is important that we do the math. We need to take a look at exactly how much money is left for food and whether that is enough. In some cases, incomes have fallen to such a point that 30% of income for housing is too much to enable people to still put food on the table.