Human Resources Committee on Feb. 4th, 2021

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

In old Quebec City there is the conversion of an old hotel across from the train station, where on every floor they treat a different segment of the population who are homeless. Homeless young women are kept together, separate and distinct, as are older homeless individuals who obviously can't go out during the day, where others might.

The former monasteries and religious buildings in virtually every major Quebec community are congregate living, with individual rooms with communal settings with meal programs. They are set up for conversion.

What we're seeing in these situations is that once you stabilize a homeless person's living environment, adding the health services to get them back to full health and independence, the real success is not housing people who are homeless, but watching homeless people lead the system. In fact, people with lived experience are some of the best housing providers now in the country.

If you're looking for advocates who do great work—and I'm not sure I can share this—one of the top-ranking bureaucrats in Hamilton came through the housing system and was homeless as a youth and graduated into the system, graduated through university, through the municipal sector and is now leading that city's charge to end homelessness. They have one of the most pronounced and aggressive housing programs in the country.

To me, there is no joy comparable to watching a homeless person get their own unit, and there is nothing as brilliant as watching one of those individuals graduate to leadership and to delivering the housing to solve the problem for us, on the ground in different communities across the country.

The stories roll through my head so quickly I can't even tell all of the stories, but the reality is that when we make that difference, we turn someone who has high needs into a high contributor.

I'll tell you the population that is the most inspiring. It's former armed forces personnel. They come with public service trained into them. They have extraordinary skills in construction, group management, and in interfacing with authority and structured figures. I think that homeless veterans, in particular, have the potential to literally be the next brigade of housing workers, and are transformational in their capacity to be redeployed into the sector. The good news is they come from every corner of the country, every community in the country. They are indigenous, they are anglophone, they're francophone, and they live on the coasts, in the north and in the major cities.

What's really interesting is the way in which government responds to veterans and the public responds to veterans. I don't think there is a community in this country that would have the Nimbyism toward them or the reaction that I don't want a group home in my neighbourhood. When you tell them that it's a group home for veterans, they calm down. When you tell them that the group home will be led by a former veteran, they respect the public service and the authority that's invested in that kind of training.

I think we have the potential to end chronic homelessness very quickly in this country. It just takes all of our deciding that's what we're going to do. I think we're at a turning point in this country's history, and that, to me, is the most inspiring thing that's come from rapid housing. It's what inspired me about the throne speech and it's the work that lies ahead with the budget. Getting those dates, those projects, but more importantly, those keys into the hands of homeless people and that transformation in their lives, to me, is the real opportunity here. Rapid housing has untied that knot and I expect great things in the future and we are working very hard to realize that with all of you.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you.

I imagine that's eaten up all of my time, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Yes, indeed.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

I can run the clock, and so can you, Anthony, too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

He has you figured out.

Mr. Vaughan, thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Housefather.

Mr. Vaughan, this is the point when we usually thank the witnesses and tell them what a great job they did. I'm just going to echo what a couple of my colleagues have said about your grasp of the file and your passion for the subject: With your being the subject matter expert, there's not much doubt about that.

Yes, your apology to the interpreters was well placed. I'll direct the next panel to speak slowly and clearly. You did speak clearly.

Thank you so much.

We're going to suspend for three minutes to do sound checks for the next panel.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I call the meeting back to order. We are resuming our study on the rapid housing initiative.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing. I think there are a couple of people here for the first time, so please bear with me.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, you can click on the microphone icon to activate your mike.

Interpretation in this video conference will work very much as it does in a regular committee meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of either the floor, English or French.

If any of you watched the last panel, please don't be like Mr. Vaughan. Speak slowly and clearly, but with the same amount of passion and knowledge. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

I would like to welcome our witnesses to continue the discussion with five minutes of opening remarks followed by questions.

From the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation we have Romy Bowers, senior vice-president, client solutions; Caroline Sanfaçon, vice-president, housing solutions, multi-unit; and Yannick Monaghan, senior manager, financial solutions.

We'll start with Ms. Bowers for five minutes.

Go ahead, please. You have the floor.

[Romy Bowers, Senior Vice-President, Client Solutions, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I just want to confirm that you can hear me clearly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Yes, it's excellent.

[Romy Bowers]

That's great.

I'm joining you today from Toronto, the traditional territory of the Wendat, the Anishinabeg, the Haudenosaunee, the Métis and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

I'm pleased to appear before this committee on behalf of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

As Canada's national housing agency, we are guided by a bold aspiration. We want to ensure that by 2030 everyone in Canada has a home that they can afford and that meets their needs.

Over the past year our goal has become more pertinent than ever. As Canadians do their part to contain the spread of COVID-19, their homes have become a sanctuary, a place of safety and refuge in very challenging times.

The pandemic has only underscored and worsened housing challenges. The reality is that the most at-risk populations are more likely to find themselves in very precarious housing. This includes women and children fleeing violence; seniors; and racialized groups, including Black Canadians and indigenous people.

The COVID-19 crisis has brought a new urgency to create more permanent, affordable housing, both to keep these groups safe through the pandemic and to ensure a strong recovery once we emerge from these very difficult times.

This why the rapid housing initiative was created. We launched this $1-billion dollar program on October 27, 2020. It will lead to at least 3,000 new, affordable units across the country, all completed within 12 months of the funding agreement being signed.

The initiative is funding projects to quickly create new, modular, multi-unit rentals, convert non-residential buildings into affordable, multi-residential units, and rehabilitate buildings that are abandoned or in disrepair into affordable, multi-residential units.

It's important to point out that the initiative takes a rights-based approach to housing. As such, it will directly benefit Canadians in severe housing need and people and populations who are vulnerable. In particular, it will create safe, stable housing for those who are at risk or experiencing homelessness or who are living in temporary shelters because of the pandemic.

To get the funding out the door as efficiently as possible, the funding was split into two streams.

The first is the major cities stream, which is providing $500 million in much-needed direct support to our cities, which are on the front-lines in dealing with the impact of the pandemic. The 15 cities receiving the funding have the country's highest levels of renters in severe housing need and people experiencing homelessness.

As of January 25, we have announced contribution agreements and projects for Ottawa, Edmonton, Hamilton, Waterloo region, London, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Halifax, Montreal and Quebec City. Construction work has already begun in some of these cities.

The second stream of the rapid housing initiative is the projects stream. This stream includes $500 million in funding, available through an application process open to provinces, territories, municipalities, indigenous governing bodies and organizations, as well as non-profit organizations.

The deadline for applications under the projects stream was December 31. We are completing our assessment and will notify all applicants by the end of February so that they can get their projects up and running as soon as possible. We expect to have all funds committed by March 31, 2021.

I wanted to note here that we at CMHC have received an overwhelming number of very high-quality applications. Over 765 applications went through a triage process to assess eligibility. We have reviewed and prioritized 678 applications, requesting over $4.2 billion in funding.

This indicates clearly the deep levels of housing need that exist in communities, and the capacity of our partners, as Parliamentary Secretary Vaughan mentioned, to act quickly, given the funding support.

I wanted to also note that even as CMHC leads this particular initiative, we've also continued to deliver on the national housing strategy's longer term programs. As you know, the NHS is a 10-year, $70 billion-plus plan, and this includes more than $13 billion proposed in the 2020 fall economic statement.

Mr. Chair, and all members of the committee, I'm extremely proud of CMHC's ability to quickly roll out this initiative. I'm very proud of our housing partners for working with us to make it a success. This means that in the year to come, our most vulnerable populations will be safer and our communities will be more resilient and better positioned to recover from this crisis.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. At this point, I would be very happy, and so would my colleagues, to answer any questions from the committee.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Bowers.

We're going to proceed with questions right away, beginning with Mr. Schmale, please, for six minutes.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you very much to our witnesses for attending. It's good to see everyone so far.

Your initiative talks a lot about modular housing. I know there are other criteria as well, but is there any flexibility given to other types of housing, such as small homes and that type of thing?

[Romy Bowers]

Yes. We have received requests for flexibility, especially from communities in the north and indigenous communities on reserve. We have exercised flexibility in accommodating requests from these particular groups.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

You've had flexibility, but is there a plan to implement? What kind of flexibility are you looking at?

[Romy Bowers]

It's hard to say. It's determined on a case-by-case basis. We recognize that in certain areas of the country modular housing may not be an option. We're willing to accommodate that, depending on the situation.

As a minor point, I think you mentioned tiny homes. Those are housing types that we can accommodate under this program, under the modular stream.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay.

Just out of curiosity, if I were filling out an application requesting a modular home, would there be a delay in the approval time if I were to ask that question?

[Romy Bowers]

No, there would not be a delay in the approval time.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay. Perfect.

I'll ask you the same question I asked Adam Vaughan. It comes specifically from the Native Council of Prince Edward Island. They talk about the amount of paperwork required. Obviously, a certain amount of due diligence needs to be done, but specifically in regard to the national housing co-investment fund, they're saying the process involves about 200 questions.

For a small organization, it could really stress them or turn them off from even applying in the first place. I know that Adam did mention that, but I want to get into some specifics with you in terms of what is actually being done and when we can see some greater efficiencies in these application processes.

[Romy Bowers]

We at CMHC listened to our clients regarding the pain points in our co-investment process. In 2020 we focused on really looking at our processes. We're very proud to report that we reduced the processing times for all co-investment applications by approximately 50%.

With particular reference to indigenous groups, which is what I think your example referred to, MP Schmale, we have a client service group that is focused specifically on serving our indigenous clients. We have client service representatives who are there to help indigenous groups fill in the application and navigate their way through our processes.

We consider ourselves a learning organization. We are always listening to feedback from our clients and are trying to continuously improve. Some of the success we've had in effectively deploying the RHI has really been due to the fact that we have learned from the pain points in our co-investment process.

Having said that, we know we're not perfect. If you have any other comments or feedback from your constituents, we're always very willing to listen as we try to continue to improve our processes on an ongoing basis.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay: I'll give you a quick piece of feedback I received from that same group in regard to the rapid housing initiative. It's specifically related to not-for-profit organizations. I guess a barrier to many organizations, in particular this one, to getting really involved with the rapid housing initiative is the requirement to already possess land. Of course, as Adam mentioned, the focus is on “rapid”. Having said that, the deadline is coming up on March 31. The construction deadlines are in 2022. I can't see it pushing that far behind in the acquisition of land as to be that much of a barrier to create a barrier for not-for-profits getting into it.

[Romy Bowers]

I'm not 100% clear on the question.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

You said you were looking for feedback on the program.

[Romy Bowers]

Oh, okay. Fair enough. It's just commentary.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I was just relaying some feedback. I didn't know if you wanted to respond to that at all.

[Romy Bowers]

Fair enough.

Just in designing the RHI, you can imagine that our focus was on rapid execution. In order to do that, we did prioritize groups that had access to land, because sometimes the whole process of acquiring land takes a longer period of time. In those instances, it probably would be more suitable for the proponent to look at our longer-term funding programs versus something like the RHI.

We take all feedback from our clients. If there was another project in the future like the RHI, we would incorporate that feedback in terms of refining the design.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay.

When you're talking about the 3,000 units in the rapid housing initiative to be completed, is the government still on track to meeting its goal of looking after those with immediate housing needs, such as the most vulnerable populations?