Mr. Chair, I'm very happy to be here today. The last time I was here at this committee, I was actually sitting in the chair's position, so it's interesting being across the way. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for inviting us.
As you know, I work very closely with Minister Kenney on the social development side of our portfolio, and I'm very proud of what we have accomplished so far. Today I want to focus my remarks on the considerable progress we've made when it comes to combatting homelessness and on the investments we've made.
First of all, however, I do want to take a couple of minutes to outline our investments when it comes to ensuring affordable housing for Canadians. These investments are made through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, CMHC. CMHC estimates budgetary expenditures of $2.1 billion in 2014-15 for housing-related initiatives. This funding supports close to 600,000 households living in existing social housing, as well as the investment in affordable housing initiative, also known as IAH, to help Canadians.
The IAH bilateral agreements with the provinces and territories recognize the diverse housing needs of Canadians while also recognizing jurisdictional issues. Provinces and territories are best positioned to allocate the investments, for example, these initiatives, to meet their local needs and priorities, and we've given them very broad parameters that include new construction, renovation, home ownership assistance, rent supplements, and shelter allowances.
Economic action plan 2013 announced our commitment to working with the provinces and territories by investing more than $1.5 billion nationally over five years to extend the IAH. From April 2011 to December 2013, the IAH helped more than 177,500 households across Canada.
As you can see, our investments are making a difference, and they continue to, which is why we renewed our investment. In fact, about a month ago, I was very pleased to be in British Columbia to sign the investment with Minister Coleman for $300 million. When I was in Prince Edward Island, we signed our agreement with P.E.I. for $14 million. We just recently announced in New Brunswick an additional $78 million. I'm leaving for Edmonton later on today, and I'm looking forward to making an announcement tomorrow.
We're making real progress in terms of the investment in affordable housing agreements with the provinces. We're seeing a very positive response from them. Each province has a very different way of addressing issues of affordable housing.
I want to turn my efforts now to talking about what we're doing to combat homelessness. Just over two weeks ago, I joined the Mental Health Commission of Canada for the official release of the final results of the At Home/Chez Soi project. This was the largest study of its kind, looking at how using a housing first approach can reduce homelessness. Many of you, I think, are probably familiar with the approach. I think you know that it represents a departure from more traditional approaches.
Up until this point, the most common way of dealing with homelessness has been through more of a crisis-based model, so it's been very reactive, not just in Canada but in many developed countries. This model involves relying heavily on shelters and other emergency-based interventions. Typically, these individuals must first participate in a series of treatments and demonstrate sobriety before they are offered housing. This approach has been costly and not effective for the long term. It's pretty easy to see how with that kind of instability it's much more difficult to participate in treatment programs and to manage mental and physical health issues. As you can imagine, for individuals who spend a night in a shelter and then leave that shelter but have to stay very close to it so they know they'll have a place to stay later on that night, it becomes virtually impossible to go out and try to get treatment for an addiction or a mental illness, or to try to look for a job or advance their lives in any way, because they are tied to that shelter. It's pretty much common sense, but now the evidence shows that the housing first approach works.
With regard to cost, homelessness takes a tremendous toll on our economy and social services in terms of emergency housing, hospitalization, shelters, prisons, and a host of other crisis services.
The housing first strategy, on the other hand, involves ensuring the individual has immediate housing before providing the necessary supports to help them stabilize their lives.
Back in 2008 we knew this approach showed great promise and we knew it was something worth looking into, so that year, under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, we invested $110 million in the Mental Health Commission of Canada's landmark study on this issue.
We believe the evidence is overwhelming. We have heard some skepticism and opposition from the opposition, but I'm hoping, as they're looking at more and more of the evidence, we will all be able to come on board to support housing first.
We continue to invest in our HPS, homelessness partnering strategies, and we've renewed that investment. Thanks to the groundbreaking research from At Home/Chez Soi, we've been able to inform our policy direction moving forward. As policy direction, it's based on evidence. It's not a political decision. It's making smart investments so that we can see lasting results for probably the most vulnerable in our society. We're moving out of crisis mode in terms of managing homelessness and working towards eliminating it altogether.
As of April 1, we have officially begun the shift towards the housing first approach in our renewed homelessness partnering strategy. We have also built in flexibility so that smaller communities who may not have the resources don't have to move to a full housing first model. They can incorporate such things as shelters and transition housing. We're looking at the larger communities that we are funding to have a majority of their programs go towards housing first, but we believe it's important that this flexibility be there and that programs transition into a housing first model.
We've committed stable funding over five years at the same level to ensure that communities can plan and successfully implement the housing first approach. The other positive part of our HPS is that community entities and communities themselves make decisions as to where the funding goes. It's not the federal government, bureaucrats, or politicians in Ottawa making these decisions; it's at the local community level, which makes it a very strong and effective program.
We know that housing first rapidly ends homelessness and leads to other positive outcomes for quality of life. It's a sound fiscal investment that can lead to significant cost savings, and when we look at the evidence, it does. We're proud of this investment. The evidence shows that for the housing first group, an average of 73% of participants were in stable housing at the end of the study, compared with 32% for the usual care group over the course of the study.
Mr. Chair, as I've said many times, we want to do more than just create safety nets. A comparison I use is that we want to create trampolines, places where people can go from a difficult position and get to a better position. Housing first, the evidence shows, supports that. I'm proud of these investments.
I appreciate your support. I look forward to answering members' questions. Thank you.
