Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Chair.
As a point of clarification, when I talk to people about the housing crisis in Canada, I like to describe it from two perspectives. About 95% of the housing in Canada is created by the private sector. Less than 5% is community or social housing. The nature of the crisis is different.
With respect to housing in the private sector, there is a disconnect between the demand for that housing and the supply. The supply is created by private sector actors. One thing the government introduced through budget 2022 is a program called the housing accelerator fund. The housing accelerator fund is a program to break down barriers existing at the local level that prevent supply responses from occurring when there is increased demand. The program is in the process of being developed. We feel there is huge potential in that program to work with actors at the local level in order to break down the barriers to creating housing supply. That's one part of the crisis.
The second part of the crisis refers to the social or community housing sector. We have about 650,000 social housing units in Canada. It's 4% of our housing stock. It's quite a small percentage, relative to the total stock. It's one of the lower percentages among G7 countries.
Through the national housing strategy, the government has made unprecedented investments in housing. It is delivering results. I can provide a large number of pieces of information to you. The target of the national housing strategy, as it's currently funded, is to create 160,000 new units of housing funded by the federal government. Five years in, we're at about 62% completion. CMHC has made commitments for about 115,000 units. More is needed, and we are absolutely committed to using the existing funds we have available. They're also developing new programs to ensure there's housing for those in need.