Evidence of meeting #114 for Status of Women in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was shelters.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Brampton South, Lib.
If there is a language barrier? Some cultures are not.... There's a stigma out there.
What kind of education...? Where can they get it? Are we giving it at the work site?
If they cannot reach a social worker or community worker, are there any other sources? This is a big gap in communities.
Director General, Community Development and Homelessness Partnerships Directorate, Department of Employment and Social Development
I'm not sure I can speak to that specifically, except to say that through the HPS program, a number of initiatives funded at the local level have targeted new immigrants, and particularly immigrant women. A lot of it is around helping individuals get into appropriate housing and then looking to make sure their other needs are met by directing them towards the appropriate services.
Brampton South, Lib.
Thank you.
My next question is for CMHC. Do you have accessible units for persons with special needs?
Senior Vice-President, Assisted Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Accessibility in the national housing strategy is a priority. It would be the community groups building or renovating the units who would decide what the community demand was. There would be no issue whatsoever with them renovating or building for accessibility. Those things would definitely be encouraged.
Brampton South, Lib.
How can a person quality for the shelter enhancement program?
Senior Vice-President, Assisted Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
The shelter enhancement program is for on reserve. We have staff who work with first nations across the country. They're talking with the folks about whether or not they want to invest in the shelters at any given time. There's an annual application process as we receive our budgets.
Brampton South, Lib.
Thank you.
My next question is to Status of Women. About the results strategy, you said there's something good from Australia. Do you know of any other country that has a great model for that issue?
Director General, Policy and External Relations, Office of the Co-ordinator, Status of Women
Other countries are doing a lot but not many have a federal or national strategy for gender-based violence and trying to achieve concrete, tangible results. Another country we normally cite when looking at this kind of work is Sweden, and Iceland is pretty far ahead. Then it's a bit spotty, but Spain is doing some very interesting work, as is Italy. Other countries are working on this, not necessarily with specific to robust results frameworks, but with research and data-collection projects.
At the moment, I would say Canada is looking pretty good. I participated in an OECD meeting just this spring, and everybody wanted to know what Canada was doing. We have somebody who just went to Mexico last week because they are very interested in our gender-based violence strategy and our data-collection tools in particular.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Excellent. Thank you very much.
We're now going to move back to Martin Shields for five minutes.
Bow River, CPC
Thank you.
Ms. Scott, you referred to hidden homelessness. Would you like to expand on the definition of that, and an estimation of numbers and percentages?
Director General, Community Development and Homelessness Partnerships Directorate, Department of Employment and Social Development
In terms of homelessness, most of the data we have, as I explained, comes from shelters.
In 2016, we provided funding to communities across the country to participate in the first national census of homeless individuals. It was called a point-in-time count. About 32 communities participated with us. This was the first national attempt to understand the experience of homeless individuals outside of the shelter system, who may be couch surfing or living in tents or on the streets. That did provide the very first portrait of homelessness. We repeated that just recently, in spring 2018, and we hope to have those results available early in 2019. It definitely gives a broader picture of homelessness beyond just the shelter system.
Director General, Community Development and Homelessness Partnerships Directorate, Department of Employment and Social Development
We can provide those to you. I don't have numbers with me today, but it definitely shows higher numbers.
Bow River, CPC
Mr. MacArthur, when you talked about housing to deal with indigenous.... I have some experience with the second-largest reserve in Canada, which is in my riding, and I've met with members and toured their new buildings. The decision about who gets to live in that housing is made by a local band-council.
Senior Vice-President, Assisted Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Absolutely.
October 15th, 2018 / 4:45 p.m.
Bow River, CPC
How do you then implement what you believe that money should be used for if they make the decision on who lives there?
Senior Vice-President, Assisted Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
We work with the bands to ensure that housing is built to part 9 of the building code or a similar code, depending on where the reserve is. We do ongoing inspections, so that when we're finished our part of construction it is up to the building code. The local housing authorities make the decision as to who goes into the housing, depending on the need in the community and local circumstances.
Bow River, CPC
When you talk about that $40 billion, you designate it for something specific, but the indigenous decide who lives in those houses.
Senior Vice-President, Assisted Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
It would be similar to a seniors' housing project that would be built in Ottawa. The group would determine who goes into that building. In the national housing strategy, indigenous communities are a priority group. If a group built on reserve, we would work with them. If they built a seniors' complex, which seniors would get into the housing would be a local decision. Local groups, co-ops and community housing make those choices.
Bow River, CPC
I want to make sure they are still the ones making the decision.
Senior Vice-President, Assisted Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Yes, absolutely.
Bow River, CPC
Thank you.
Ms. Scott, people have crossed the border into Quebec in the last year. We have been hearing rumours about their ending up in our shelter system, and they are full of those people. Are you getting information on this situation?
Director General, Community Development and Homelessness Partnerships Directorate, Department of Employment and Social Development
We don't have specific information on numbers. I think we've certainly heard that in some of the larger centres, that is putting pressure on them and increasing the number of individuals who are staying in the shelter system. As I mentioned at the outset, our program funding is being increased. It was increased under budget 2016. In particular, there was a 25% increase for some of the large centres across the country, and that funding will be increasing with the implementation of the new program in 2019. More specifically, the migrant situation, I think, is a question my colleagues at IRCC would probably be in a better place to answer by providing more details.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
You have 20 seconds.
We'll move over to Bob Bratina. You have five minutes.
Bob Bratina Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, Lib.
Thank you very much.
During the war, in the neighbourhood where I grew up, a lot of kids lived in a wartime house. Between 1941 and 1947, some 46,000 wartime houses were built. Subsequently, CMHC inherited the whole notion. Why don't we just get the old wartime housing booklet out and see how they did it? It was quite a remarkable chapter. I've always been curious about that.
Are you familiar enough with that project to speak to it?