Human Resources Committee on June 1st, 2026

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for sharing their various opinions with us. It was interesting. Mr. Lethby and Mr. Donais, thank you as well.

My first questions are for the La Halte du coin representatives.

Ms. Favreau and Mr. Rousseau, thank you very much for being here. I don't have a question about your comments on the numbers. It's quite incredible to see that the number of refusals has doubled even though there are additional beds.

I represent the riding of Shefford, whose main city is Granby. I can confirm that homelessness has shifted a lot. It has become a real problem for the Granby region; it's no longer just a problem for Montreal. The face of homelessness is definitely changing.

In fact, my first question is about the increase in homelessness. Mr. Rousseau, in your remarks, you talked about the new face of homelessness. Beyond the numbers, who are these new people who are experiencing homelessness?

[Pierre Rousseau]

It's really varied. Having worked in Montreal and patrolled the poorest neighbourhoods, I can say that gentrification has taken place. There were people who were struggling to make ends meet at the end of the month because of the rising cost of living, poverty, housing renovations and evictions. These are people who were already struggling to get by.

Some of these people were getting organized; they were on welfare, but they couldn't make ends meet. A welfare benefit is $865 for one person, whereas a one-bedroom unit costs $1,100. The solution was to share an apartment, but when people fought, they came back to the shelter.

There are also a lot of homeless seniors. When people get to the shelter, they're always a bit distant from their family. If they come to La Halte du coin, it's because something was wrong before they arrived. Whether it's a 93‑year‑old, a young person who has just left a youth centre or someone who can no longer afford their housing, we really want to direct them to organizations, such as L'Antre-Temps. We naturally accept young people, but there are a lot more young people and seniors who need support. I'll give the example of a couple where one spouse was visually impaired; a worker would walk around with that spouse, but that would monopolize one person. That image is unbelievable and shocking.

Ms. Favreau, do you want to add anything about the new faces of homelessness?

[Frédérique Favreau]

I think you have covered the issue, but I can confirm that many more seniors need help, particularly because of renovictions. That's quite staggering. As I was saying, we sometimes wonder if we haven't become a residential and long-term care home.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I can confirm that, in Granby, the main issue for the Association québécoise de défense des droits locale is the number of renovictions and of seniors ending up on the streets.

I was listening to a report last Thursday when I was on the road back to my riding after my work week. The report confirmed that the combined income from the old age security pension and the guaranteed income supplement—you were talking about the amount of social assistance—no longer enabled seniors to afford to pay their rent. Given that, combined with what you already said about young people leaving youth centres, I think we can see that the faces of homelessness have changed dramatically.

Food Banks Canada published its report this morning. I'm going to consult it to see the new faces of the people seeking food aid. We agree that two of the most essential items, which have gone through the most inflation, are housing and the ability to put food on the table. Those are two basic needs.

What are the causes? You talked about the lack of income. Is it the lack of a continuum of services? Is it more a lack of funding for support programs? You talked about Reaching Home. Regarding the encampment program, in January I met with organizations that were lamenting the fact that they didn't have confirmation that their program could go ahead. Many organizations benefited from this program in my riding.

What are the consequences of that?

[Pierre Rousseau]

This naturally leads to insecurity.

The causes of homelessness include breakups, workplace accidents and addictions. This is well known and is very broad. You mentioned food assistance. We run a day centre three days a week when we're open to the public. People, including those at risk of homelessness, also come to us for a meal. That, too, is skyrocketing.

We're already in trouble when social alienation begins. An organization like La Halte du coin has seen its number of beds drop from 45 to 35. We had to reduce our capacity by 10 beds because La Halte du coin will run a deficit this year. Despite the help of a foundation that is covering part of our deficit, we'll still be in the red. So, thank you for the effort, thank you for what has been done, and thank you for the increase in VCS, but honestly, it isn't enough. This means our number of beds will drop from 45 to 35. It breaks our hearts.

[Frédérique Favreau]

Regarding the CERP, that is, the community encampment response plans, I had a meeting this morning on this topic, and the figures have still not been confirmed to date. La Halte du coin helped with a project involving trailers under the metro during the winter. Over the winter, at that location alone, aside from La Halte, we welcomed 12,000 people to a community café.

We're already concerned about what we'll do if the funding doesn't come through or if we don't have the same amounts confirmed for next year. Will we be able to help on the same scale this year, even just for the winter?

All these people have returned to the waterfront to live in tents. If you pass through Longueuil, you'll be able to see them. As Mr. Rousseau said, the more we put them in encampments, the more socially disconnected they become. It then becomes difficult to bring them back with us, into society.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Larouche.

Ms. DeRidder.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

You have five minutes, ma'am. Welcome.

We have a number of new members this afternoon.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I'm going to start with Mr. Donais.

Thank you for coming and sharing your story. From one person to another who slept on the streets, the more we talk about it, the more we'll make change in this country. I'm grateful for your courage and for your desire for a solution to what we're seeing here in this country.

One thing I think we haven't focused on yet today is how addiction surrounds homelessness and how it's a piece of the puzzle of what we're seeing in this country today.

There is an encampment in Kitchener, where it was just ruled that the encampment is going to stay because housing needs to be provided, which you said is stifling progress. I agree with you, sir. Our office went and talked to 22 of those residents in that encampment, and of those 22, only one wasn't using. I think a piece of that is recovery services for addiction and focusing on your big, beautiful life on the other side of addiction.

Can you just speak to how that transitional piece will help with focusing on stabilization and recovery for people trapped in addiction?

[Ryan Donais]

Addiction definitely played a part in my homelessness, and recovery was a big part of ending that cycle and getting out of that cycle.

I don't think the solution is spending more money; I think it's to spend money differently and divert it towards the places it should go. There are a lot of seniors who just need a small rent supplement.

If we spend money differently, we can divert money towards more things like addiction services. Right now, in any major city in Canada, if you call city services and say that you want to go to rehab, those services are months away. We need more wraparound supports, and we need more pathways towards ending the behaviour that causes homelessness.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I agree completely.

Mr. Lethby, you spoke about youth today. Can you speak to how poor mental health, addictions, family breakdown and social isolation become a part of youth entering homelessness? If we just concentrated more on upstream funding, could we break those cycles before these youth fall into addiction?

[Michael Lethby]

A famous study in World War II looked at planes that survived and saw where the planes had taken damage. Then they assumed that they needed to strengthen these parts of the plane, but in fact it was the opposite: It was the planes that didn't survive that needed work, not the planes that survived. Similarly, in homelessness, we see lots of addiction, lots of mental health problems and lots of poverty, but we're not actually seeing all the people who didn't become homeless.

If you look at serious addiction in Canada, you see that it is probably at 16%, while 1% of the population is homeless at any given time. If addiction were a major driver of homelessness, we would expect to see a lot more homeless people, but we're not. Why? That's the question.

The answer is what I call the “unifying theory of homelessness”. People are homeless because of an inability to leverage a social relationship for housing. Why are people with serious addictions not flooding our streets? It's because they have family and friends who go out of their way to make sure these people are housed.

The people we see on the streets are there because, for some reason, they have not been able to access those supports. Our work is to recognize that and see how we can support people in bettering their relationships and then allow the system—the natural system, not the for-profit, paid system—to support people through housing.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you.

It's not in 100% of the cases that they have supports. I had family who loved me very much, but they showed me tough love. While I was in active addiction, I wasn't allowed home, but when I was ready to recover, I was. That's also a piece of it, I think, moving forward.

There are some people who fall in because it was fun in high school. Then it turns into something they didn't ever expect would happen. We need to support anybody who, at any given moment, wants and needs to recover.

Mr. Donais, if you were to make the decision today, can you say how fleeting that decision is and how quickly we need to respond when someone says they're ready?

[Ryan Donais]

We need to set people up for success. Recovering from addiction is not just going to treatment. It's going to detox, waiting to get into treatment, going to treatment and then the housing aftercare that follows.

If you've been in active addiction for however long, it's many times longer to unlearn the behaviour. We need to put more supports in place, not just for addiction but for mental health. We need to support people in ending the cycle of homelessness.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. DeRidder.

Madam Romanado, you have five minutes.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here with us today.

I'll start with you, Mr. Rousseau and Ms. Favreau. Thank you. As the member for Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, the other riding in Longueuil, with the Jacques‑Cartier Bridge—I'm very familiar with the work you do.

You touched briefly on prevention and the importance of having not only housing, but also all the necessary support services. After I was elected in 2015, at one of the first meetings I had with the Table itinérance Rive-Sud, I asked why there was homelessness on the south shore. I said that couldn't be true, that everyone was doing fine. They told me about the programs and explained the problem of the lack of an ecosystem. So, if someone has an addiction or mental health issue and things aren't going well with their family, we can give them a place to live, but they won't have any guidance or support.

Can you give us your advice on how to support people experiencing homelessness? It's not just a matter of finding affordable housing. There needs to be a whole system around that. Can you share your advice with us?

[Pierre Rousseau]

Absolutely.

I like using images. Many of you may have played the game snakes and ladders as children. Recovery and homelessness move at the pace of the people experiencing them. For some, this is the first step. Some people will benefit from the ladder, so we adjust accordingly. The challenge for shelters is to take in all these people who aren't in the same place.

I understand that supported housing is incredibly important. However, we are dealing with a huge number of people in chronic situations, and it's heartbreaking.

In the Longueuil region, organizations are separate, but we work very well as a team. If La Halte du coin is the sink in a plumbing system—I like images—and the continuum is made up of transitional housing and supervised apartments, then that continuum is blocked. This pushes shelters to try things like the ECHO project or extended emergency housing. It's contradictory for an emergency shelter to provide extended emergency housing, but that's because we're racing against the clock. We've been doing this since October, and out of 105 people, 75 have gone into therapy. It's true that they go to therapy and then come back, too. We're working with a very tough group.

So, there's no magic solution. We have to adapt. It's frustrating in a way, because we want this just as much as those people do, and fatigue is also setting in. However, we have to respect this continuum and acknowledge where people are in their journey. We can't just wave a magic wand and put everyone into housing, thinking we'll end homelessness. It doesn't work that way. There has to be support, and unfortunately, along this arduous journey, some people will stumble, get back up and stumble again.

What matters is building relationships of trust. Shelters like ours, for example, will refuse to take in more than 50 people, because we know the individuals, and we build relationships with them. This is the beginning of re-engagement and self-esteem, through projects like ECHO, where, with the Quebec ministry of employment and social solidarity, we provided a small stipend. People received training from the Association québécoise pour la réadaptation psychosociale. They have become individuals who share their lived experience. They are integrated into training programs for future case workers. All of this is about restoring dignity.

It's difficult, Mrs. Romanado. To answer your question, it's very complex. I'm taking a lot of time. My apologies.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I'll just ask Mr. Lethby a question.

Mr. Lethby, you talked a little about a success story in terms of youth and prevention and keeping kids out of homelessness. I'm assuming that you've had to work very closely with municipalities, with schools, with teachers, with social workers and so on to successfully implement that program. What would you recommend to those who are trying to do similar work in terms of hoping that one day we won't need shelters? What is your hope that all levels of government, all intervenors, can work together for that common goal of making sure that if somebody is at risk right now, they don't get to the point of being homeless?

Could you give us any insight?

[Michael Lethby]

Yes, that's 100% right. We've had to work with the whole community in order to support youth. It's not something that my agency can do alone, but I do think it's important that all the services focus on the thing that they do well, instead of trying to do all the other things. That's where I find there's some conflict.

We focus on youth and on making sure they get into housing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mrs. Romanado.

Ms. Larouche, you have the floor for two minutes and 30 seconds.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Once again, witnesses, you are unsung heroes. You are changing people's lives through your work, what you do every day. What's more, some of you are doing this after having gone through difficult times yourselves. That is a great credit to you.

I'd like to digress for a moment. Mr. Rousseau, you mentioned earlier that divorce can be a cause of homelessness, and you spoke about the game snakes and ladders. My first encounter with people experiencing homelessness was as a teenager, when I spent an evening at the Maison du Père in Montreal serving meals. Afterward, I was invited to chat with the people there. I played cards with a man who had been a lawyer but had lost everything following a divorce. He ended up on the street. So, it's true that there are many causes.

Ms. Favreau and Mr. Rousseau, I'll ask you a question first, and if there's time, other witnesses can answer it.

Several organizations in Quebec advocate for a continuum-of-care approach. At this time, does a single-approach model like Housing First truly meet the needs of all profiles of people experiencing homelessness? I think your testimony has already confirmed this.

There are organizations in my region. I'm thinking of the people at Auberge sous mon toit and Le Passant shelter, who, during a meeting, used the image of steps on a staircase. It's one step at a time. If you skip a step, you might fall. It's a bit like the snakes and ladders game you mentioned.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Maybe housing alone doesn't solve everything.

[Pierre Rousseau]

There is a wide range of people experiencing homelessness. We've kept some individuals in the shelter longer because they were about to move into housing with the help of the Quebec's rent supplement program. That's a breath of fresh air, a great idea, and it can truly help. However, it doesn't work for everyone.

As a shelter, we don't want to exist. We don't want to see the line keep getting longer. That's not what we want to do, but given the current situation, we can't hope that….

It comes down to housing, but with support, once people are ready and have reached that point. That's difficult and it takes a long time—and for some, it's a long and discouraging process. There are people we've known for three years. I've known people for three years, and some of them have gotten off the streets. However, it takes a very long time. For others, it really doesn't take long at all, because they have social skills or even a small support network. They're able to get back on their feet quickly, and we support them. They feel valued. We know their names and we build a relationship. For them, things go well.

It's true, Ms. Larouche, that housing isn't everything, but it's important too. People experiencing homelessness are a community. I'll stop there.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you.