Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question on an issue that is close to my heart.
As I said earlier, in budget 2013, the Conservatives renewed the budget for the homelessness partnering strategy, but they reduced the amount. The budget had not been indexed since it was created, which means that the budget had been going down and then it was actually cut in 2013. There is not enough money.
Then, the Conservatives came up with the new housing first approach. I completely agree that we need more housing. I mentioned that. However, this approach only helps one group of people: people who are in desperate need of housing and who experience chronic or episodic homelessness. The approach does absolutely nothing to address hidden homelessness or to prevent homelessness. This is a short-term vision, since the budget was renewed for five years instead of for a longer period.
Furthermore, if we give food to people who have to choose between paying the rent and paying for food, for example, we could prevent them from ending up on the street. We must not wait for people to end up on the street before we provide assistance. It shows our humanity when we help prevent people from ending up on the street instead of helping them only after they are already there.