Human Resources Committee on June 13th, 2024

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Your last report, as you just referenced, was on encampments, and that's something that really exploded through the pandemic and coming out of the pandemic. Our budget, as you know, has $250 million earmarked towards encampments, and we hope that it will be cost-shared with the provincial and territorial governments to address the whole issue of encampments.

We topped up our Reaching Home program. As you know, there was a lot of consternation with municipalities across the country who thought that this fund was going to be reduced. In fact, it's quite the opposite. We've not just topped it up, but we've provided a little more resources. Of course, our bilateral agreements also speak to addressing encampments. I can point to three distinct pots of money that go a long way to addressing encampments.

Can you comment on the need for the resources that we have in the Reaching Home program, in our new encampment fund, in the bilateral agreements, and some of the other funds that we have that address people who are living rough on our streets?

[Marie-Josée Houle]

Absolutely.

We saw in budget 2024 that there were lots of new initiatives and continued initiatives, which is very positive. One thing that I'm hearing back from all the sectors is that this investment can't fall off the cliff. If it's just an injection, drop by drop, organizations that do this work on the ground can't hire and maintain staff and then build trust with people with lived experience and get the results that we want, which is to have people adequately housed under an adequate roof and not just sheltered. That's the end goal for everyone. People are talking about their frustration at walking past encampments. People don't want to see encampments. It's not about pushing them further along out of public view; it is about investing in people.

To invest in people is also to invest in the non-market sector. Again, over the past 30 years the levels of government that have been investing in non-market housing, which is very little, have been doing so drop by drop, and therefore we've lost the capacity.

John Gordon has spoken about that also in the indigenous housing sector. We need 30 years of promises of continued funding. Quebec was a great example until the last, I would say, five or six years. They had invested in their non-market sector. André Castonguay was here last week to speak about that, and how important that is, and I'm sure Véronique Laflamme will be speaking about that. It's not just about money for construction—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Houle.

You can follow up later on in another question.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Houle. As the federal housing advocate, you are making a valuable contribution to the fight against the housing crisis raging across Canada and Quebec.

The housing crisis is widely discussed, and this isn't the first time the committee has studied the issue. Our purpose this time is to determine how we can act and take the right steps to resolve the crisis or, if that's impossible in the short term, at least considerably reduce its extent. You're correct in saying that housing is a right.

I want to thank you for the contribution you've made by publishing important reports, such as those on the financialization of housing. We have adopted strong recommendations on that issue in this committee. The challenge is that it takes a long time for specific measures actually to be implemented. In addition to your annual report, you recently published a report on encampments, and I have a question on that subject.

I think you've really sounded the alarm with all the studies you've done.

When we say encampments, we're also talking about homelessness prevention. On that subject, you have requested that the government prepare a plan on the issue by August of this year.

Has the government responded to your report?

[Marie-Josée Houle]

Yes, I recently read a letter from the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities. We actually met yesterday evening. We were told that other measures, in addition to the previously announced $250 million fund, would be put in place. So there's a plan.

It's very ambitious on our part to request something by August 31, but we think this is urgent. It's really a matter of life or death for people living in encampments. I also had to set a deadline in order to exercise my oversight role. We chose August 31 because that's when the municipalities start talking about what will happen to people in the encampments over the winter. We don't want people to die or to have a hand, arm or foot amputated as a result of frostbite.

This is really an urgent matter. It's not just a shelter issue. It's really a housing problem, and real solutions have to be found.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

In one of your recommendations, you called for Infrastructure Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to include, in funding agreements with the provinces and territories, conditions that would enable Canada to meet national and international human rights obligations.

What does that key commitment that Infrastructure Canada should make mean for you?

[Marie-Josée Houle]

From what we've heard, many market actors really support human rights. So this is a great opportunity for us to clarify what those rights actually mean.

Adequate housing isn't limited to mere affordability. It must also be safe and accessible to all, and measures must be in place to protect renters from eviction. In addition, dwellings must be clean and provide basic services such as electricity and potable water. Housing must also be culturally appropriate and be in a location where renters have access to employment opportunities and community resources.

The right to housing doesn't mean that the government must provide adequate dwellings for everyone. Instead, the government must use its power and resources to create a housing system that will support the right to housing for all. To do this, it must invest all available resources, relying on statutes and regulations, and take active measures. It must also set goals, such as reducing and eliminating homelessness, and develop policies and programs the effects of which, as well as progress toward achieving those objectives, can be measured. The government must also understand that it is urgently necessary to protect and support the people in greatest need and to eliminate discrimination.

The present system in Canada doesn't meet all these requirements. The housing situation evolved over the past 30 years before devolving into the crisis we have today. While we won't be able to resolve the situation overnight, all orders of government must absolutely pull their weight if we want to see progress. For that to happen, we need a plan.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

We definitely need a plan. The national housing strategy was supposed to help improve the situation. At least $82 billion was initially invested in the strategy, but it failed to deliver the goods. That was public money. However, non-market housing was allocated a share that I wouldn't go so far as to characterize as infinitesimal, but it was definitely less than that amount.

The Auditor General, prepared a disconcerting report on homelessness regarding, in particular, the reaching home program, which was offered in the context of the national housing strategy. According to that report, the government would have to spend $3.5 billion, 7 times the current investment, to reach its goal of reducing chronic homelessness by 50% by 2030.

What do you think of that finding of the Attorney General's?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Ms. Houle, I'm sure you'll be able to express your opinion during my next two-minute round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Mr. Boulerice, go ahead for six minutes.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Houle, thank you for being with us this morning. Thanks as well for all the work you and your team have done. It's absolutely important.

I'm going to say a little about the financialization and commodification of the real estate stock and housing in general in Canada. Your office recently released a report on financialization, unless I'm mistaken, and it was the National Housing Council that published it. I want to be sure I'm assigning responsibility to the right organizations.

In the 1990s, the federal government, in a way, began to abandon its investments in social housing and truly affordable housing.

In addition, people began to view housing as a source of income, in some instances rightly so. For example, people who have no pension fund invest in housing. For them, buying a duplex or triplex is a way to save for their old age. However, there are also all those large corporations that have enormous property holdings and tall apartment towers with hundreds, even thousands, of doors.

What's the impact of this dual phenomenon: the federal government's abandoning its investment in housing and the financialization of the market?

[Marie-Josée Houle]

It has made rents completely unaffordable. It has also led to convincing efforts to remove people who are protected by local laws so that rents can be increased.

Furthermore, the buildings we're talking about, those that were really subject to speculation, are the ones where rents were moderate and that housed low-income individuals. That meant that, once the units were vacant, rents could be sharply increased. Even in provinces that have rent control, there's no control over rents when a unit is vacant. Quebec is starting to take some interest in the matter, but that's not the case in the other provinces.

So that was a good reason to evict people. Apart from evictions, we've seen a very dynamic buyer's market. Those old properties may have needed repairs; they were also the result of federal programs from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. We still want the private market to build more units today. So we have an excellent acquisition fund for the non-market housing market that would make it possible to purchase those properties. And the private market will benefit a second time.

Why couldn't we simply invest directly in the non-market housing market? That's a phenomenon that I'd like to bring to your attention today.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

That's good.

Many people say that one of the current problems in the housing crisis we're seeing across Quebec and Canada is a lack of supply. According to those people, increasing supply will solve the problem and improve the situation.

I want to hear your opinion on that. What supply are we talking about? Are we talking about building $2 million condos? That increases supply, of course, but will that really help renters or people who are about to be removed or evicted? Will it help those who can't pay their rent and are forced to move and change neighbourhoods or even cities?

[Marie-Josée Houle]

You mean people who wind up on the street.

As I said at the start of my remarks, it has to be the right supply. CMHC, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, has published reports on the housing system and the possibility of building whatever one wants, which contrasts with our needs.

We requested a report from Carolyn Whitzman, which confirms that there's an extreme housing need here in Canada and that 20% of housing units must be made available at rents below $1,050 a month.

Consequently, all programs really need to be adjusted so that enough units can be built to meet Canadians' needs. The situation will vary from one city and region to another, but we can get there if we focus on needs rather than demand. However, we won't get there by continuing to focus on demand or to give priority to what the private market wants to build because that's good for it. Too many people will slip between the cracks. We agree that the housing system works well enough for 80% of the population, but the situation is dire for the remaining 20%. We can see the result of this in the encampments.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Yes, there are the encampments, and, as we've recently seen, there are also people living in their cars, for example, because they can't pay rent anymore.

I have a minute left and a complex question for you. What is the federal government's role in all this? It's complicated because you have the municipalities, the provinces and the federal government. Do we deal with this on our own, or do we wait for support from the provinces and municipalities? Sometimes co‑operation is slow in coming.

[Marie-Josée Houle]

First, there has to be a very clear intention. As I said, we need a plan that invests in an entire generation and spreads over 30 years. Then we have to build good relationships. Housing is of course mainly a provincial issue, but all three orders of government have a role to play.

However, when it comes to human rights, it's up to the federal government to take the lead, and it therefore has a major responsibility in this regard.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Boulerice.

Ms. Ferreri, you have five minutes.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Houle. It's wonderful to have you here. You do very important work, as all of my colleagues have said here today.

Ms. Houle, we had Mr. Kevin Lee here. He's the chief executive officer of the Canadian Home Builders' Association. He testified, and his testimony was very powerful, in my opinion. He said:

I'm here to tell you that you'll never fix the affordable housing issue with funding alone. There are simply not enough tax dollars to go around....

If you don't...fix housing affordability, you can never fix your social housing problems. If you don't fix housing affordability, people can't buy homes. That puts pressure on the rental housing stock....

I see you nodding in agreement, so I assume that you agree with that kind of statement.

I had the chance to visit the Royal Ottawa hospital this past week. They have 240 beds. This is a mental health and research facility. This is what the manager there told me: If I have one message for you, it's that we do not have access for supportive housing. I know it sounds terrible, but ultimately, these beds don't get freed up.

When you walk by encampments and when you look at people who are truly struggling, there's an interaction there with mental illness. For our emergency rooms, such as in my community of Peterborough, this is one of the big issues. There's nowhere for people to go. It's not just housing. It's housing with supports for people who have that complexity. It's all connected.

I take your housing advocate position seriously, but there has to be an accountability factor on the federal government. You can't manage anything that you don't mention. The reality is that we keep taxing people. We keep taxing home builders. We keep putting on these costs. People aren't able to build, which opens up the housing continuum.

My question is for you as the federal housing advocate. The department spent $1.36 billion between 2019 and 2021, but the Auditor General said that the department did not know whether chronic homelessness and homelessness had increased or decreased since 2019 as a result of this investment. How do we ensure that this money—billions of dollars—is spent so that we have fewer encampments and the people who need housing are actually getting housing?

[Marie-Josée Houle]

Thank you for that question.

We need measurable results. We need transparency around these funds. I spoke about public dollars for public good. This is exactly what we're talking about. When we talk about the definition of adequate housing, for some people being adequately housed really means being housed with supports. For some people it's just a light touch—learning the rights and responsibilities, how to be a good neighbour, how to get a bank account and being able to pay their rent every month. Some people need a lot more support. They need support for mental health and for addiction. It is about housing first, but there is no housing first without housing. There is a supply issue, but it is about the right kind of supply.

As I mentioned during my opening statement, we need measurable results. We need transparency. We need data. The non-market housing has provided all of that all along, since its investment started 60 years ago. We need to have those accountability mechanisms in place for the entire housing system to truly be able to understand. As Carolyn Whitzman says, we can't count what we don't know, and we can't address what we're not counting.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Exactly. To that point, I guess what I'm looking for...and what you say in these testimonies is really what's put in the committee report that goes back to the House and that we hopefully evaluate.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference on Parliament Hill, the Auditor General said the government really doesn't know if all the housing-related money spent so far, about $4.5 billion across six different programs.... That's a lot of the homelessness issue. When you talk about transparency and accountability, I guess what I'm asking you, on the record, is that it doesn't feel like that's in place right now by the federal government and the current government in charge. It doesn't feel like that. Obviously, things have never been worse. Rent has never been this high. We've never seen these encampments.

How do you make sure that there's accountability and measurable results and that the money is actually helping people? What can we do?

[Marie-Josée Houle]

First of all, we need an all-of-government approach, bringing together different silos. You talked about health. You talked about housing and other areas. This needs to be not just all levels of government but an all-of-government approach to be able to understand fully what's happening.

I mean, we're in the data age, but are we collecting good data? Then there are other laws around privacy that say, we can't share that information because...but there are a lot of opportunities there.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We have Mr. Fragiskatos for five minutes, please.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here again. It's good to see you.

You mentioned in your testimony at the outset, among other things, public land, and how that could be part of the solution and make a meaningful contribution to the challenges at hand. Can you expand on that?