Evidence of meeting #42 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was winnipeg.
Member, Federal Working Group, Manitoba, Right to Housing Coalition
I can't give you the number. I wish I could. I wish you'd asked me the question. I would have tried yesterday.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
No problem.
Again, from Winnipeg's standpoint, how do you align yourself with the provincial and federal governments? Who lobbies on Winnipeg's behalf for money for housing?
Member, Federal Working Group, Manitoba, Right to Housing Coalition
As a volunteer advocacy organization, we have a working group for each level of government. We have people advocating with the city for what they can do, what they have left of their mandate around bylaws, taxation, and safety, looking after the existing housing stock. Our big housing group is the provincial working group. I agree with your assessment that it's a bit of a jumble right now in terms of a federal program that filters money down to the province, which might get out to community organizations. Everybody is taking off their share in order to maintain their office and their staff and whatever they do.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
I appreciate that.
Mr. Distasio, one really quick question for a quick answer. Shelters receive money from the province. For example, in my city, the shelter gets $160,000 from the province. They have to privately fundraise almost three times that amount to make the shelter work. What's wrong with that system?
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg
Well, we shouldn't have shelters in the first place....
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg
For funding, it is the same thing here. One of our shelters has been able to have consistent funding, Main Street Project. They've only recently had to focus on fundraising. Siloam Mission is probably in that same boat. They provide critical services, but they have to reach out. They have to reach out and adjust their mandate to be more than just a shelter. What we've realized now is that you can't just put somebody in a bed for 10 hours and kick them out in the morning. You have to have that continuum of service, even in shelters. They've also become smarter at providing additional supports.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for coming this morning.
I wanted to frame the way we hear requests for more money. We hear that a lot. I represent 107,000 northern British Columbians who work very hard for their money. They're usually dual-income homes, and average about $70,000 to $80,000 per household per year. They can afford a modest home. I'm concerned that they're finding it more and more difficult to afford a house and sustain their lifestyle. The government keeps asking for more money, more tax dollars, money for different reasons. Whether it's a carbon tax, etc., it's all on the shoulders of Joe and Jane Taxpayer.
I want to use that as a framework to ask my next questions. Mr. Distasio, you say billions have been spent studying poverty reduction. If you were in our decision-making seats, what would you do to reduce programs that are ineffective? Do you see any government programs that are targeted to reduce poverty that are ineffective?
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg
Again, I think the greatest programs are the ones that are able to direct funds toward community-based organizations. The more we can empower those community organizations and entities to come up with local plans, the better success you have. I still say the HPS, which is the current—
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
Can you explain that acronym for us again?
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg
It's the homeless partnering strategy. The federal homeless partnering strategy is a good framework because it gets money to Winnipeg and it actually bypasses the province in some ways, but it's just tacked on with all this tape. Get rid of the tape, give the money back to the local community organizations, and have them do good work.
You raise one question I don't think we've talked too much about today, which is home ownership. Again, I put my old hat on from when I just stepped off the board of Habitat. Habitat is a neat model. As much as we always focus on affordable rents and the impoverished, we need to figure out a way to lift more Canadians out of poverty through home ownership as well. Affordable home ownership is a good way for government to get back and be involved in things. CMHC was that place—5% down and assistance. We can grow that. We can rethink home ownership.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
We just came from Saint John and we saw some excellent examples of those community organizations that were asking for more funds as well. My caution to them was that they are doing a great job without us, so why would they want us to be involved or why would they want us to push them beyond what they're already doing?
I think there's a perception that government can help: “We're from government. We're here to help.” Often they're doing a great job on their own, and this is the kind of initiative we would really like to see go. I think one thing we see with poverty, which some of you have discussed, is that this isn't a poverty-sustaining study. We actually want to take people from A to D where they're out of poverty. That's where we want to go.
Sorry, I called you Mr. Distasio. Are you a doctor? Okay, so you're a doctor. I wanted to correct that before I moved on.
I think the discussion was about red tape and red tape production. What specifically would you suggest to us as a committee should be reduced in terms of red tape, to get better value for the taxpayer dollars from Joe and Jane? These dollars come from actual people. I like to define it that way, because we always look at this big grey building in Ottawa as the big bucket of money that we go ask, but every single dollar in that big bucket of money comes out of taxpayers' pockets, and they're usually working very hard to earn those dollars.
On red tape reduction, what would you suggest we do?
February 15th, 2017 / 9:45 a.m.
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg
Use the community-led model through the HPS that established community advisory boards led by local experts and supported by a community entity that manages money. Just give those community entities a little bit more autonomy to make local decisions and just lift the continuous burden. As I said, it took me, with tremendous resources of the university and our accounting—
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
But explain that, because you said “lift the burden.” We're always hearing, “reduce red tape and lift the burden.” How?
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg
I think there's a good model in your jurisdiction. In Vancouver, your local HPS community advisory board is Vancity. Vancity has created a really simple program to get money into people's hands, to monitor it, and to get reports back. They simplified a very complicated process.
Again, in my view, there are good best practices there, but there's a tremendous level of reporting that seems to take layers and layers and layers to just fund a small program. You have two layers. You have a community advisory board approving; you have a CE managing; and you have a federal representative there, yet that's not enough. It still needs to go to Ottawa to analysts and persons who, I'm assuming, check a box on a spreadsheet somewhere. We need to forget about that box and just have some assurance that locally, the money is managed by your federal representatives here through the CE, through the CAB, to the organization.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
Dr. Distasio, would you be so kind as to submit to the committee information on what you talked about, the entity in B.C. that you're saying has a great way to operate?
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg
Absolutely.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
I think we need that. We need those suggestions, because we often hear about problems but we don't hear good solutions. The good solutions are there waiting, because you see clearly what they need to be.
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg
I submitted that to the HPS and the review a couple of year ago, so I'll forward it on. I think the Winnipeg model works. We have a really tremendous efficient model that I'm sure Edmonton and your community have as well. We just need to fine-tune it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
Thank you.
We're actually on time, but I understand you have something to add quickly here.
Chair, Federal Working Group, Manitoba, Right to Housing Coalition
Yes. I just want to talk about Jane and Joe. I think they actually have a real interest. They should have a real interest in social housing and affordable housing because as RGI units disappear and people are paying more and more.... If you're paying 60% to 90% of your income to shelter yourself, you're under a lot of stress. We know that as that rises, people are now accessing more health care and other social services, and families are under huge stress.
If we think about the bigger picture of the burden that Jane and Joe might have, if we are misspending huge amounts of funds, in a sense, by increasing costs in health care, etc., across the social welfare system, Jane and Joe should actually have a really big interest in making sure that affordable and social housing is available. We need to consider that.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
I agree with you. I'm concerned though that without the changes and without making things more streamlined, even more of a burden is put on the backs of Joe and Jane. Then they have to provide even more of their limited margin of income that they have left at the end of the month for another government program. That's my point.
Chair, Federal Working Group, Manitoba, Right to Housing Coalition
It's just being increased through other places.
Liberal