Sure. Thank you for that question.
Speaking for those who have the most acute needs, in Ontario there's anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 people every night who experience homelessness. I'm going to speak to it more from a financial perspective, which may seem odd, than a person perspective. I would think that people could understand the need to have a house. It's the foundation, pun intended, if you will, of Maslow's hierarchy of needs: food, clothing and shelter. Not everyone has that.
From a financial perspective, it is far more costly to deal with homelessness in a reactive manner by using our frontline heroes like paramedics, police officers and firefighters. They're not equipped to deal with homelessness. Our doctors and nurses have people visiting emergency rooms 200-plus times a year. That's an expensive and inappropriate use of services.
The solution to homelessness is housing. We need to build a lot more housing of all kinds. It's not just for those who are homeless. There's a huge number of people who are low to middle income who cannot afford, for many of the reasons mentioned today, housing of any type. Market rentals are out of reach for low- and middle-income people. The cost of inflation, for the reasons that my colleague Mr. Jarvis noted, is very real and impacts the price of housing for the people who want to purchase housing in the market.