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.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Brandon, for your presentation.
How many people in Winnipeg are on a wait-list for affordable housing?
11:10 a.m.
Community Animator, Social Planning Council of Winnipeg
The numbers are tricky because Manitoba Housing doesn't keep a unified list, but we understand there are about 3,000 people on eligibility lists.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
11:10 a.m.
Community Animator, Social Planning Council of Winnipeg
In some cases, they can be on a list for many years. It varies. Some people get something quickly if their circumstances are really bad, but some people wait for years.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
We came out with investment in affordable housing, additional money. I know it was announced in my city of Saint John, New Brunswick, that there was an extra $56-million, two-year agreement for investment in affordable housing. How do you see that money trickling down, though?
One of the biggest frustrations I've had as an MP is that there are some great federal initiatives, but then those federal initiatives have to go to the province and work their way down to the municipalities. Do you see opportunities for better alignment of the three levels of government? I believe that the greatest change will come through federal initiatives. Do you see better opportunities for alignment down through the levels of government. Did Winnipeg receive money, and who advocated for that?
11:10 a.m.
Community Animator, Social Planning Council of Winnipeg
Winnipeg did receive money and it's a multi-part agreement with $33 million for repairs. There's about $11 million per year, which doubles the existing $11 million, so it's an extra $44 million in total. Those are important investments.
As to your point of how we get those investments into the right places, I think we need to have community leadership, and there needs to be support for community groups to develop plans that meet their needs.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
You believe the community should have a stronger voice as to what specifically they need.
11:10 a.m.
Community Animator, Social Planning Council of Winnipeg
Exactly. Too often what happens is that requests for proposals go out, and the organizations that are first to jump on the list are the most organized ones. Too often we see groups that maybe don't have the capacity. Indigenous organizations, for example, or organizations that are dealing with communities that are less organized aren't able to take advantage of those opportunities so there isn't good matching with resources and need.
What we need to have in place is capacity building so that all communities can take advantage of the resources that are available in a timely fashion.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
I think it's safe to say there's been a lack of investment in affordable housing over the past several years. Certainly a comment was made in my riding that there was a man at Outflow, the men's homeless shelter in Saint John, who went into affordable housing, and three days later he came back to the shelter. They asked him why he was going back, and it was because the affordable housing he went into was not up to any standard. He wanted to go back. He felt, if you will, safer in the shelter from the perspective of bedbugs or what have you.
How do we fix this problem? Saint John is the oldest city in Canada. Our housing is old. We're putting money in it, but in your opinion what do we do to get upstream of this?
11:15 a.m.
Community Animator, Social Planning Council of Winnipeg
I think you need to have the people living in poverty have a voice at the table. Here in Winnipeg, at Lord Selkirk Park, one of our oldest social housing projects, there was an investment in helping build the community there so that the people who lived in social housing had a voice on what priorities should be met in terms of improvements when they implemented a number of improvements in redeveloping that complex.
When you get people who live in the housing at the table and have their voices heard, they take pride in the ownership of the development, and also you're able to best address the needs that they are experiencing. We need to have investments in renovations and redevelopment, but we also need to have the community voice at the table.
11:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc.
I would like to quickly say that I'm the co-chair of End Homelessness Winnipeg, which has adopted a collective impact model. We're a board of people from the private sector, philanthropy, service, people who have been homeless, elders, etc. We have a group of people who would typically not sit together.
One of our working groups is a housing supply working group, so we're working with developers, people who have lots of business experience, along with people who have been homeless and who are homeless. They are working together to come up with a housing supply response system for Winnipeg.
Having a collective impact is my key message on how we need to engage more people with an opportunity to bring solutions.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Very quickly, Mr. Brandon, what can we do to make the housing first program better in your opinion?
11:15 a.m.
Community Animator, Social Planning Council of Winnipeg
Housing first is a clear demonstration that, when we provide housing for people, that is the first step towards their taking the other steps they need toward employment and dealing with problems around addiction. We need to give people safe housing first before they can take any of those other steps.
I think in some models of housing first, as it has been applied, it becomes a system in itself. You have to fit into certain boxes to access the system.
11:15 a.m.
Community Animator, Social Planning Council of Winnipeg
We need to make sure it's more universal and meets the needs of people who are applying for it.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Would you agree with me that we need better wraparound services, too?
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Thanks very much.
I'm going to start with Ms. Redsky.
You mentioned in your comments that when people find jobs, they still need to have continued support. What is the continued support that you see as most lacking?
11:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc.
It depends on the sector and the needs of the training program. To give one quick example, Ndinawe is a youth-serving organization, which developed a specialized child and youth care diploma program. It's still certified through our college, and they can go on to university, etc. This program, however, is specialized for survivors of sexual exploitation and human trafficking. They build in all of the trauma-informed and culturally appropriate services. Then they start working in the helping field on prevention and with other sexually exploited youth in the area of human trafficking.
They've created an alumni program because now these women, who have been highly traumatized, have a diploma. Some of them even go on to pursue their degrees. Now they're working, but they're triggered every day. They're triggered by the trauma of their past—and for them that would be more extreme. We can't underestimate trauma for an indigenous person who has either intergenerational or direct trauma.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
A lot of times you're looking at the social and mental welfare of that person perhaps.
11:20 a.m.
Executive Director, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc.
That's right. They've created an alumni program so that the women can come back and create and have a support system so that they can keep their jobs.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Excellent. Thank you very much.
Josh, I want to turn to you because you talked about the resettlement of refugees coming to the community. I have some concerns with it because I think we already have a system that is responding as well as it can with thin resources.
Have you found that the resettlement services money has been adequate for refugees coming into your community or into Winnipeg?
11:20 a.m.
Community Animator, Social Planning Council of Winnipeg
It takes many years to fully resettle people, and we're very early on in the process for a lot of families. Some families that are coming into Winnipeg are struggling to find good housing. When they are able to get into good housing, that becomes a foothold for their settlement. There are amazing people working in language training, in all the different aspects, job search training, and helping people get through that process. The first year is really critical.
