Thank you for the question.
Finland has functionally ended homelessness. They've been at that level for a number of years. When they first started this, probably 20 years ago, they saw in a three-year period the end of street homelessness. It was a very short period of time to achieve those kinds of results.
With the income threshold, they knew they wanted to build a lot of non-market housing, but having everybody immediately stabilized with a rent subsidy was saying, “First, we can do this now.” Immediately, they saw people not flowing into homelessness as easily.
In terms of what actually moves anything in the shelter system right now, it's only rent subsidies. If we're not focusing on prevention, and we're just trying to get people housed, the only thing in our shelter system is subsidies. We are desperate for it. You see a direct link when a community has less. In Ottawa we ran out of ours by June of this year.
You see an immediate stop, basically, in terms of shelter flow and people getting out. In terms of a broader income strategy, it's really effective. It can be quite potent in terms of truly lifting people out of poverty. Then, in terms of the overall system, being able to prevent that falling into homelessness is key.