Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, colleagues.
Minister, as you know, my community has been hit particularly hard by the housing crisis that we are in, including the number of people living unsheltered having tripled in recent years.
I appreciate that you've at least talked about how non-market housing is deeply affordable and a really important part of the solution. Your statistic is a little bit high. It's 3.5% of the total number of social housing. As a country, we are at the bottom of the G7 right now.
I also appreciate that you've made time to meet with some non-market, non-profit housing providers in my community that are ready to build: KWhabilitation House of Friendship, Indwell, The Working Centre and oneROOF.
They were looking at this year's and last year's budgets. In budget 2023, there was nothing. In the fall economic statement 2023, there was nothing. In budget 2024, the rapid housing fund that they were looking towards has been cut. It's $100 million down...from...$750 million a year. We missed a year, and now it's cut. The rental protection fund is important, but there's only $5 million for the whole country there, and then the reaching home strategy is $225 million across the country in this year's budget.
Why cut the rapid housing fund when it's been such a critical program for non-profits to build housing?
Also, can you commit to those reaching home program dollars reaching Waterloo region? We need them.