Thank you.
I can really only speak to the urban situation. That's where I work and that's what I know best. My work is very much focused in downtown Montreal so I'll speak specifically to that. I would say the housing stock is definitely not sufficient. It's not sufficient in either quantity or quality. Obviously we look at the numbers of indigenous people who are homeless in urban Montreal. We know there's a lack of affordable housing on the market and obviously that seems to be easing a little bit in Montreal and other urban areas with the pandemic. However, the stock that is coming on the market is not necessarily affordable housing.
I think the more important issue that I tried to raise is in the type of housing that is available. What's really missing is this supported housing, what we call “housing with wraparound services”. A lot of the social housing units available in Quebec are single units. They are often out in the suburbs. There are very few supports that go with it. Time and time again, our experience has been that when we try to put people from our community who have been using the shelter—and who may have been chronically homeless for years—into that type of housing, it is not adapted to their needs. Often within months, they are back on the street.
That also goes back to the question of community, but having the supports in place to allow people who are chronically homeless and have mental health or addiction issues to live independently takes those wraparound services. When those are not available, when we put people in individual units out in the suburbs with no supports, that does not respond to the question of homelessness or to the need for housing in any way, shape or form.