Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the committee for undertaking this important study of a Canadian anti-poverty strategy. With me is Jeff Morrison, CHRA's executive director. We'll share our presentation.
As a national association representing the interests of the social and affordable housing sector in Canada, the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association (CHRA) is really pleased that the committee has drawn a clear link between poverty reduction and access to safe and affordable housing.
Housing that meets those characteristics is essential to enable individuals and families to have access to healthy living, access to education and academic success, and access to stable employment, which helps establish and develop families. Those are fundamental cornerstones for an anti-poverty strategy.
Since housing is an indispensable need, the cost of housing and the share of household income that goes to it are among the main factors that determine poverty. Having access to affordable housing increases the ability of households in difficulty to get out of poverty and to improve their conditions in the long term. When we see the real numbers and the current situation in Canada, we may be shocked by the situation. Actually, 1.6 million households in Canada, which means more than 3.5 million people, spend in excess of 30% of their income on housing. These are renters, not people who invest to acquire property and develop capital. About 850,000 of those households spend more than 50% of their income on housing. We can easily imagine what the consequences are on their ability to feed themselves, to educate themselves, to raise children properly, and so on.
Households that are in such precarious situations are predominantly made up of people from groups subjected to discriminatory practices. They include indigenous people, single-parent families, low-income people, racial minorities, persons with physical disabilities or mental health issues. Problems of access to adequate housing and the strategies to address them would benefit from being considered from a human rights perspective.
We are making an important proposal that the right to adequate housing be explicitly recognized in Canadian legal instruments. Somewhere in Canadian legislation, there must be a reference indicating that we have the right to quality housing. We are talking about affordable and adequate housing.
As you know, just as we speak, while developing its anti-poverty strategy, the Canadian government is taking other steps to define a national housing strategy. As we understand it, following this consultation, the strategy will be announced shortly after the next budget. We are talking about the housing strategy, but it is essential that the poverty reduction strategy and the housing development strategy be closely linked.
While we were holding consultations, the CMHC hired independent firms to conduct surveys with all Canadians. There were all sorts of public consultations and private consultations, and a report with the results of the consultations was published.
In all the provinces, in all the regions of the country and in all the categories of stakeholders, people said that the housing and poverty issues were closely linked and that those two needs require a joint response. If it has been established that there's a link between the two and that it's the collective desire of Canadian society, of Canadians across the country, how do we go about developing this strategic framework?
In October 2016, during the consultations on the national strategy, CHRA presented a brief entitled “Housing at a Crossroads: CHRA's Vision for the Next Generation of Housing Policy in Canada”. A copy of our brief was submitted to the clerk of the committee. You will be able to consult it.
We have an ambitious goal: by 2035, all Canadians and Canadian households should have access to safe, affordable and adequate housing.
There are 24 recommendations to do so in technical terms. We will not go through all 24 recommendations, but my colleague Mr. Morrison will present the main ones.