Madam Speaker, I thank my NDP colleague for her question. She is right to be concerned.
We believe that at least 2% of the $2 billion for this year should be recurrent funding for building new social housing. There are problems when the vacancy rate is no more than 3%.
There are 12 municipalities in my riding, and not one of them has a vacancy rate above 3%. Two of these municipalities have a 0% vacancy rate, and the rates in the other municipalities range from 0% to 2%.
What does this mean? First, people with low incomes are forced to spend too much of their income on housing, often 50%, 60%, 70% and even 80%. This makes no sense. What does that leave them for food and clothing?
Often, these people are forced to move away from their own families to find affordable housing in other cities. Let us be clear. When I say “affordable”, I mean housing that is financially affordable, but not necessarily acceptable from a cleanliness standpoint.
The government needs to make a massive injection of money to build new social housing. My colleague is quite right.