Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member opposite for bringing that human story not just to Parliament but to all of Canada through Parliament. The challenges facing communities across this country, as they relate to homelessness, are profound. Housing and homelessness are partnered in this challenge.
We have done several things to support governments like the B.C. government and others, to try and turn the situation around with a historic investment in housing, which is not just the $40 billion over the next 10 years, but also includes the $5.8 billion put in our first budget, which are the dollars that are being spent by the provincial government in B.C. so effectively. However, more has to be done.
Part of what also has to be done is that we have to understand that the story that was just told to us comes from rural Canada. Rural Canada has housing and homeless challenges as well. When the previous government identified 61 designated communities, it kind of forgot rural Canada and imposed the same rules on rural Canada that were imposed on urban Canada. In other words, the definition of what constituted chronic homelessness was exactly the same as what was designated in major cities like Vancouver or Toronto.
The challenge here is that rural communities, especially northern rural communities, experience homelessness differently, women experience homelessness differently, women in rural communities experience homelessness differently, and seniors who are women in rural Canada experience homelessness differently. The notion that the woman who was just described would have to spend six months living on the street before a federal program would even contemplate supporting this individual, is obscene. It is wrong.
The changes that we have made to the program allow for the HPS, the homelessness partnership money which is now renamed as “reaching home” to work in preventative strategies. One of the things we are trying to get to, as shown in a good study coming out of London, Ontario, is the role that hospitals play in projecting people into homelessness. The right to housing is going to be realized when governmental organizations that provide provisional housing do not simply swing the door open to say, “Good luck. I hope you find housing out there” but actually have a responsibility before discharge to make sure that people have a place to call home, that their rent is secured and they are attached to housing systems that can realize their housing needs and, thus, respect their human rights.
This is the change to “reaching home”. As I said at the beginning, it is intertwined with an approach to housing that also is building new housing now. We have built 14,000 units of housing since we took office. We have repaired 156,000 units of housing and our support has reached into more than a million homes across the country.
Even though we have put these large numbers in play and even though we invested before the $40 billion and have reprofiled the money in that $40 billion investment, when we hear stories like this, we know we have to work harder and deliver more because no senior, no woman, no person in rural Canada, no person anywhere in Canada should be in a situation where they find themselves paying the sorts of rents that were described and not having supports of meals, social services and community. That is just unacceptable.
The national housing strategy is a bold new beginning on the housing front. More needs to be done and we have to make sure that when we act, we act in recognition of the complexity of this issue right across Canada.
As for the issue of indigenous housing, the government is currently engaged with national indigenous organizations, the Métis, the Inuit and first nations. We are also in the groundbreaking moments of a national urban housing strategy to fulfill the last chapter of the national housing strategy to make sure that all Canadians get the home they deserve.
My thanks to the member for the story she told. I assure her that help is on the way because help has already arrived in places like B.C. in a strong partnership between our government and the provincial government in Victoria.