I think housing policies are a really important thing. In some cases, I think it is important to speed up planning processes.
I will just speak about Interval House of Ottawa. We are currently exploring the possibility of building a 10-unit second-stage housing development. To be competitive enough in the application process, we need to be far enough along in the actual pre-development phase to have boots on the ground or shovel in the ground and be ready to go. It's tricky because the municipal processes are complex and take months.
From a policy perspective, what would be helpful for agencies like ours would be some kind of priority or expedited pathway for social services that are trying to build that deeply affordable housing that is the true need in our community. I don't know that it would be helpful to have that on a broader scale for projects that are not for that deeply affordable housing, because they're definitely not meeting the need we're seeing in our community.
I'm not talking about just the clients we serve and shelter, but most people in the city of Ottawa, generally speaking. Even if you're middle-income and earning $70,000, $80,000 or $90,000 a year, you cannot afford the rents in the city and most certainly cannot afford to buy a house.
I think we need to be prioritizing and creating smoother, quicker pathways solely for those deeply affordable housing projects and less so for the market rent or even what's deemed below-market rent, because those are not feasible options for most people in our community.