I think Build Canada Homes has already been putting a lot of emphasis on reaching out to provinces and agreeing to these kinds of deals. We've seen that in Quebec, as you mentioned. We've seen it in British Columbia. We're hoping to see it in other provinces as well. This is because they have earmarked significant funds from their original five-year investment for transitional and supportive housing, which is desperately needed across the country.
I would say that deeply affordable and especially supportive housing, for sure, is the largest gap, from our perspective, in the housing landscape today. That's why we have tens of thousands of people who are homeless in Canada every night, which is shocking in this day and age.
The Build Canada Homes example in Quebec is a great one. It is an example of federal leadership and provincial co-operation that allows for the unlocking of a whole bunch of new units that otherwise couldn't be there if it wasn't for multiple levels of government coming to the table and saying, “We have to do something about this.”
I think it's a great model. It's a great model for Quebec, and we hope to see all of the provinces and territories partner with Build Canada Homes to make use of the funding that's there.
At the same time, I believe they only set aside a billion dollars of their five-year $13 billion for supportive and transitional housing. Again, transfers to other levels of government are important, but they are not what's going to solve Canada's housing crisis. The numbers of units that we're talking about here are just not anywhere near the size of the crisis when it comes to the need for deeply affordable and supportive units.
We need to find new ways of building at a much higher scale. That's really where I think we need to see the leadership from Build Canada Homes, even more than just continuing to sign agreements to transfer funds to provinces and municipalities.