Human Resources Committee on June 1st, 2026

[The Chair (Robert Morrissey (Egmont, Lib.)), Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Good afternoon, committee members.

Welcome to meeting number 39 of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Pursuant to the motion adopted on Monday, May 4, 2026, the committee is meeting on homelessness in Canada. Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members and witnesses are appearing in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Before we begin, I would like to remind all members to please silence your devices. You have the option to participate in today's meeting in the official language of your choice. Please use the earpiece and select the channel for the language of your choice. If you're appearing virtually, please click on the globe icon at the bottom of your Surface. Choose the official language of your choice.

If there is an interruption in translation services, get my attention. We'll suspend while the situation is fixed.

All those appearing have met the required test to be translated in both languages.

As well, please refrain from tapping the boom on the microphone, for the protection of our translators.

Please direct all comments through the chair and wait until I recognize you by name before proceeding to speak.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses for the first hour. From La Halte du Coin, we have Pierre Rousseau, chief executive officer; and Frédérique Favreau, clinical director. From Raft, we have Michael Lethby, executive director; and from Tiny Tiny Homes, we have Ryan Donais, founder and executive director.

Each witness, one speaking for a group, will have five minutes for opening statements.

We will begin with La Halte du Coin and Monsieur Rousseau.

Mr. Rousseau, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Pierre Rousseau, Chief Executive Officer, La Halte du coin]

Okay. Ms. Favreau and I will share that.

It is very difficult to present our entire mission and achievements regarding homelessness issues associated with federal programs in five minutes. Here are some elements that may support our presentation and, we hope, prompt some questions.

Allow me to briefly introduce myself: My name is Pierre Rousseau. I have been the general director of La Halte du coin since 2023. We will explain what La Halte du coin is. I am a retired member of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal, where I worked for 30 years. I was also a training manager at the École nationale de police du Québec. I am a graduate of the École nationale d'administration publique du Québec. In the past, I was the administrator of the Reaching Home program, or RH, for two years. At the time, while I was administering the RH program, I worked at the mental health, homelessness and addiction office before taking a closer interest in homelessness and joining La Halte du coin.

[Frédérique Favreau, Clinical Director, La Halte du coin]

My name is Frédérique Favreau, and I am the clinical director at La Halte du coin. I have a bachelor's degree in criminology. I worked for two years at the ministère de la Sécurité intérieure, in the detention facilities in Montreal. I have also been working on homelessness for nearly 11 years now.

La Halte du coin is a shelter for people experiencing homelessness. It's a shelter with a high accessibility threshold, which means that we respond to emergencies and try to stand out from the crowd by setting ourselves apart.

The things we do differently include a number of programs, such as the ECHO project, a program for peer support workers, who train to help others. Afterward, these people are the ones who welcome people experiencing homelessness to our shelter.

There's also extended emergency, which acts as a small bridge for people who have something confirmed, but for whom we can't make the connection with our partners. Thanks to this program, we can support them until they secure their housing or their therapy, wherever the setting.

We also have the emergency treatment fund, or ETF, which is a very valuable federal program for people with mental health and addiction issues. We take them in for a number of months to help them then integrate into housing.

We also have the local medical clinic. That means we have nurses and doctors who come to La Halte du coin to meet with people experiencing homelessness and address their various needs.

Lastly, we have a day centre to meet the need in our territory, since there's a shortage of day centres, especially on weekends. We open our doors to all people in vulnerable situations so that they can come and get support services, hygiene services and food services.

In terms of statistics, applications have significantly increased since 2020. I'm putting a lot of emphasis on the aspect of new faces. We really do have a lot of new faces at La Halte du coin. From April 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025, we welcomed more than 887 separate people, for a total of 16,000 overnight stays and more than 3,000 refusals, an average of nine refusals per day. More recently, from April 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026, we welcomed 964 different people, for a total of more than 20,000 overnight stays and 5,000 refusals. It's important to note that we have increased our welcome capacity by 15 additional spaces, and we have doubled the number of refusals, which shows that the needs have really been growing since 2020.

[Pierre Rousseau]

Having administered the Reaching Home program and dealt with the grants that we gave to organizations, and having been the director at La Halte du coin for three years now, I would be happy to look at the Reaching Home program and the ways it can be improved.

I don't want to take up any more time, because we only have five minutes, but I'd be happy to answer any questions, particularly on the program's flexibility and the necessary predictability.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Rousseau and Ms. Favreau.

Mr. Lethby for Raft, you have five minutes.

[Michael Lethby, Executive Director, RAFT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for your invitation to appear today.

My name is Michael Lethby. I'm the executive director of Raft, a youth-serving organization in the Niagara region.

It is likely no surprise to the committee that homelessness has been increasing across Canada. It has been reported that instances of homelessness have more than doubled since 2018, with many smaller communities seeing visible homeless in their streets and parks for the first time.

My first-hand experience in the homeless sector occurred in spring 2005, when Out of the Cold, a volunteer-run overnight shelter, closed after winter. Unlike other years, the residents of this shelter banded together and occupied St. Catharines' Montebello Park. This group, which called itself A Ray of Hope, had one demand: that the municipality open a year-round shelter.

The city sought temporary accommodation by opening a shelter on unused city property. I was selected to manage the shelter and work with A Ray of Hope leadership to find a resolution. The solution was a request for proposal issued by the municipality to open and operate a year-round shelter. At the time, this did seem like a solution. It resolved an immediate crisis in a fair and respectful manner. What we didn't understand was that we had started a process of increasing homelessness in St. Catharines and Niagara.

In 2006, I became the executive director of Raft, a 10-bed youth shelter in a dilapidated building in downtown St. Catharines. This building was in such poor shape that none of the doors closed, including the door to the only bathroom, and it was so infested with rodents that we would find their bodies throughout the building. Even in such a state, our shelter was full every night, and I was forced to turn away youth.

The solution, which I'd already experienced, was to open a new, larger shelter, which I did in 2007. The new shelter was and remains beautiful, with 24 beds, large rooms, proper showers and bathrooms, a full kitchen, doors that close and no rodents. Within a couple of months, the solution was overrun. All my beds were full, and I was back to turning kids away.

I'm telling you these stories because I want to establish for the committee that I was part of the problem. The solution to homelessness was opening more shelters. This solution entrenches homelessness, creating a vicious cycle of homelessness, which leads to expanding shelters, which leads to increasing homelessness. I know this is true, because I both witnessed it and have participated in it.

In 2006, Raft sheltered 120 individual youth. In the years 2007-08, the new shelter saw the number increase to almost 500 per year. Not only was the shelter entrenching youth in St. Catharines into homelessness, but we had also started pulling youth from the smaller communities and towns.

However, here's where the story changes. I didn't open a 35-bed shelter or a 50-bed shelter. Overwhelmed by demand and lacking any ability to increase supply, I started considering how to reduce demand. What I found was that the majority of my assumptions about homelessness were wrong. For example, I found that the majority of kids accessing my shelter were in high school immediately prior to becoming homeless, and that, for many, they had dropped out of school in order to access shelter. These weren't “bad kids”. However, once in my shelter, few returned to their schools or their communities. Instead, for many, they had found a new community in homelessness in the street.

Our solution was a program called Youth Reconnect, a simple program that works with teachers to identify students who may be struggling with housing. Once identified, a Raft worker meets with the student to understand the struggle, and works to develop the solution. This approach was instantly successful. Students remained housed in their community and remained attached to their schools. Importantly, they remained attached to their natural supports.

In 2013, Youth Reconnect was available to every student in Niagara. That year, the Raft shelter went from sheltering close to 500 youth per year to 160, which represents a 70% reduction in youth homelessness. Since then, Raft has expanded its prevention and diversion programming, adding shelter diversion and dedicated family and natural supports. As a consequence, homeless youth are only 6% to 8% of the homeless population in Niagara. In 2024, the other youth shelter closed due to a lack of demand. Raft is now the only youth shelter. We have an average of three to four kids per night in a region with a population nearing half a million—one shelter, four kids.

Achieving this solution requires the following: recognizing that homelessness is caused by impaired relationships and social exclusion; an unwavering focus on housing, including the recognition that family is Canada's largest provider of affordable housing; offering fully funded, proven prevention and diversion programs; and increasing the productivity of shelters by reducing lengths of stay and increasing successful discharges to housing.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Lethby. You gave a much different perspective on this issue than I've heard in some time. That's not to take away from any of the other witnesses. Thank you for presenting.

Mr. Donais, go ahead for five minutes.

[Ryan Donais, Founder and Executive Director, Tiny Tiny Homes]

Good afternoon, Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Ryan Donais, and I am the founder of Tiny Tiny Homes, a charity organization focused on transitional housing for people experiencing homelessness.

I also come with lived experience. I first experienced homelessness at 16, while still in foster care. Over the next 10 years, I spent that time on the streets, in and out of jail and stuck in a cycle of destroying my future. What I needed most was not just a shelter bed; I needed stability. I needed privacy. I needed a safe place where I could focus on rebuilding my life.

When you're stuck in survival mode every day, it's hard to work on addiction, trauma, employment, education or mental health. Housing creates a foundation for recovery and stability. That experience has led me to create Tiny Tiny Homes. I believe that healing begins with housing.

One of our residents, Brent Blake, was living with stage 4 cancer. He was the nicest guy in the world. He was humble, proud and the type of person who would not accept a dollar from anyone. He also wouldn't go to a shelter. We were able to get Brent in a tiny home and then into permanent housing for the last few months of his life. We offered him something the system couldn't, which was a path back to his own dignity.

One thing I would like the committee to understand is that homelessness is not one-size-fits-all. Different populations require different solutions. While tiny homes are where we started, we believe it's only a small part of the bigger picture of housing. The real goal is creating pathways out of homelessness through a multi-level approach of stable, affordable and supportive housing.

In Toronto, we currently have tiny homes operating, and we're working on launching another larger location this summer. One of our major projects is a 10-unit youth housing development in Chatham, Ontario, focused on youth exiting foster care and youth experiencing homelessness. These young people are at an extremely high risk of chronic homelessness after aging out of care. Our goal is to provide small private units with washrooms and supportive services so these youth have a stable foundation while they transition into adulthood.

All of the projects are funded by grants and donations; no funding has come from government.

From our experience on the ground, I believe there are several areas where the federal government could improve outcomes.

First, funding processes need to move faster. Small organizations often struggle with long approval timelines and complex application systems, even when projects are ready to move forward.

Second, there needs to be more support for smaller, community-led housing models. Large projects are important, but smaller projects can often be built faster, integrated into communities more easily and operated with lower costs.

Third, we need to focus on transitional and supportive housing, especially for vulnerable populations, like youth exiting foster care, people recovering from addiction, seniors and people leaving encampments.

I also believe that we need to recognize that harm reduction starts with housing first. It is next to impossible for someone to recover from addiction, improve their mental health or stabilize their life while living outside in survival mode every single day. Housing gives people the stability needed to begin working on the deeper issues they are facing.

In Toronto, the average cost of a shelter bed is about $136 per night, and in specialized shelter settings, the costs are significantly higher. On a most basic level, it is often cheaper to house people than to keep them homeless in emergency systems.

Beyond the financial cost, stable housing also reduces pressure on hospitals, policing, emergency services and the justice system. Housing creates stability before a crisis happens. At a time when every public dollar matters, we should be prioritizing housing models that deliver the greatest number of housing outcomes per dollar invested. By embracing lower-cost housing solutions, we can help more Canadians without increasing overall spending.

Finally, I believe we need to remember that housing is not just infrastructure. Housing is health care, housing is prevention, housing is public safety and housing is dignity. Everybody deserves a safe place to stabilize their life and build a future.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today.

I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you so much for your testimony, Mr. Donais.

The question round will be interesting.

Go ahead for six minutes, Mr. Aitchison.

I'd like to change places with you, but I can't.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We'll give you an opportunity. You can exercise your prerogative a little later on.

Thank you to all of the witnesses who are here today. We appreciate your coming.

I'm going to start with Mr. Lethby.

You and I have talked a few times about what I think is quite a miraculous transformation of the homeless youth situation in Niagara. I'm wondering, though, if you can explain to us a little bit about the homeless and the shelter system generally, and how people find themselves in the situation that you found yourself in.

For example, politicians seem to think that the solution is more money for more beds. I wonder if you can elaborate on that a bit for the committee.

Basically, tell us what we've been doing wrong.

[Michael Lethby]

Thank you for the question.

This is a solution that's over 100 years old. I was over in England not too long ago, and I found that there was a shelter that was created for people coming in to work in the cities. This has been our response. What's happened is that while our society has changed over time, our response has stayed largely the same.

In the past, people would come in, mostly men, and it was for very temporary stays. What's happened now is that we have a shelter system that's trying to deal with all of the population, utilizing a model that was really designed for another time.

From a politician's standpoint, especially as a mayor.... Mayors tend to be the politicians who hear about homelessness the most. They're the ones taking the calls, because there's someone downtown, and the answer tends to be very understandable: You see someone on the street and you assume they need a place to go, so a shelter seems to be the logical in-between place, because we all know housing is unaffordable.

I'll say that I've been doing this work for 20 years, and housing has always been unaffordable. I've never been in a time where housing was affordable, but the same answer comes through, and it's being reinforced only now by the courts, which are saying that the answer to homelessness is that you must provide shelter. The direction to municipalities is that they must provide shelter, so from a legal standpoint, we're entrenching shelter even further into our system, which then makes it very difficult to look at other options.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I want to continue with this line of questioning.

You focus very much on diversion, on diverting young people from ever becoming homeless in the first place. We heard a stat in the last meeting that a staggering number of people are experiencing homelessness as adults, but that their first experience with homelessness was before they were 24 years old.

The work that you are doing now is not just about young people today. It's about the future. I'm wondering if you can speak a little more about that work and about what the biggest barrier is to diverting people from becoming homeless in the first place.

[Michael Lethby]

In a research study I conducted in 2006, we did an interview with about 160 entrenched homeless people in the Niagara region. About 45% of that population identified that they were first homeless as teens, so we have very local research that shows this problem. Actually, part of the development of our program was that study back in 2006.

As for the biggest barrier, prevention takes time. That's probably one of the biggest barriers. If you're the mayor and you're getting all of those calls, it's hard for someone to stand up and say, “Well, we have a solution, but it's going to take five to 10 years to have effect.” That's the tough part about prevention: It's generational. It takes time before it takes effect, in which case you have to have your emergency shelter system running at the same speed as you're running your prevention. Because it's in a crisis moment and people tend to want to deliver crisis services, it's always hard to champion a prevention model that doesn't directly address the crisis.

However, we have found that our shelter diversion program is probably the best of the early-adoptive prevention programs, because we're currently seeing a 70% chance of diversion. Seventy per cent of young people who had never been in shelter before were able to divert to safe and appropriate housing, and if they have had experience with homelessness, we're still seeing a diversion rate of about 40%, for an overall diversion rate of about 53% to 59%.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I have 40 seconds left here. I want to make sure we don't demonize very well-meaning people whose raison d'etre is to grow their organization and house as many people as possible. I think that's very well meaning, but you're telling us that it's not really the solution.

[Michael Lethby]

In my experience, it's not the solution. In my experience, we look at housing, and we look at boxes, and I see families.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Aitchison.

Mr. Joseph, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to take this opportunity to not only thank all the witnesses who are here, but also let them know that their contribution to this study is truly invaluable.

Mr. Rousseau, as a professional responsible for administering the Reaching Home program, how do you suggest we improve it?

[Pierre Rousseau]

In my experience, the program is vast. It addresses many housing needs, from the search for housing to emergency shelters. It naturally works on a project-by-project basis.

In short, what puts organizations in a difficult spot is the late announcements. You should know that the Reaching Home program is a very important funder for people in Quebec, in addition to the Quebec government's interdepartmental action plan on homelessness, or PAII. However, the late announcement of this funding's renewal has consequences on how we manage our organization and on our staff retention. We don't know where we stand. If possible, we should get an announcement about the renewal, please, because there are pressing needs.

I would go further. In Quebec, there's the Programme de soutien aux organismes communautaires, or PSOC, which is a recurring program. In my view, given its importance, the Reaching Home program should also be a recurring program with projects every two years.

We administer non-profit organizations, but there are important management rules that apply, as in businesses. For example, managing to carry over money from one year to the next would be an invaluable gift. The executive director and the people who administer the organizations should also be allowed to have sound management. It's no good trying to scrounge up the money.

For example, money is announced in February, but we have to spend that money by March 31. Come March 31, we're going to spend it, or rather, we're going to invest, we're going to buy things, but if that funding were renewed, paid in advance from the start, it would give us more predictability.

I realized that when I was administering the Reaching Home program. Organizations were in a tough spot. For example, if they wanted to do capital work, they had to find contractors and everything, which can overlap two fiscal years. There's a rigidity that we shouldn't have anymore.

It's important to avoid late announcements, then. Funds should be set aside to give to organizations so that they can carry out their activities, rather than carry out last-minute projects by making investments before March 31, as if it were a race. We'll always find investments, but if we receive the money a bit earlier, we'll be able to do something.

The same is true for the community encampment response plan, or CERP, where shelters work closely with people in encampments. An organization like ours, La Halte du coin, offers 45 beds, and we also manage two trailers under the Jacques‑Cartier Bridge. Our organization is located next to Montreal. There's a sea of people there. You heard us when we mentioned the number of different faces we have seen. We do a lot of work regarding chronic issues.

I'm going to digress a bit. I want to add the fact that we have the unique characteristic of being a gateway. We work with other organizations on transitions as well, but also on six-month, one-year and three-year periods. In short, those are the improvements I wanted to highlight.

Naturally, I have to say this: Demand has increased. We've increased the number of beds from 30 to 45, and the number of refusals has almost doubled. The demand from people experiencing homelessness is increasing. The number of people in distress is increasing.

I welcome the government's investment, which has increased Reaching Home's funding, which is rising. However, there should be more funding. As a shelter, we're able to get people off the streets through extended emergency programs.

In October, we introduced a program for which we received 105 people.

It's a race against time; that's true, and my colleague is right to say so. People need to be given more time.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Since I have about two minutes left, I'm going to ask you another question.

Do you think that more predictability or flexibility in funding would enable organizations to devote more resources to direct services rather than administrative management?

[Pierre Rousseau]

Yes, inevitably.

That would be reassuring for us, since we have to manage everything. It's important to have perfect management, sound management. If we don't have predictability, it hinders us enormously. We manage to make expenditures and investments, but if there had been sound management, we might have spent those funds on something else. Since it happens at the last minute, we're fighting against a public service rule.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Rousseau.

Ms. Favreau, if you had three priority recommendations to make to the committee, what would they be?

[Frédérique Favreau]

The first is to invest in prevention. Numerous studies have proven the importance of prevention.

Mr. Rousseau and I often say that if the goal is to shut off the tap at La Halte du coin, the shelter spaces, then it's really important to invest in prevention and the encampments, things that existed less before.

The longer these people are left out by the water, as is the case in Longueuil, the more they get left behind. That means it takes more resources, more time and more energy to reintegrate them.

The other option is really about housing. I'm talking about supportive housing, not just housing. If we just put these people in housing without any follow-up or support, that's when we have a problem.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Joseph.

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