Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the member for Spadina—Fort York.
I am going to use my time today to talk about “reaching home”, our government's new initiative that will give communities the tools and funding to work toward a 50% reduction in chronic homelessness over the next 10 years.
Reaching home will officially launch on April 1, 2019 as part of Canada's first-ever national housing strategy, our government's 10-year, $40 billion-plus plan to lift thousands of Canadians off the streets and get families out of inadequate and temporary housing. These are bold changes.
Under the national housing strategy, our aim is to see the building of 100,000 new housing units and 300,000 repaired or renewed housing units. This will create a new generation of housing in Canada. Our plan will promote diverse communities. It will provide housing that is sustainable, accessible, mixed-income and mixed-use. We will build housing that is fully integrated into the community, close to transit, close to work and close to public services. I want to emphasize that these goals and these numbers did not come out of nowhere, they came after more than a year of consultation from coast to coast to coast, a year in which we met with people with lived experience of poverty and homelessness and allowed them to guide the process.
I mention this because not only does it highlight our commitment to developing effective solutions, but it also stands in stark contrast to what the NDP has done and said on this issue. The New Democrats first promised only $50 million per year for the fight against homelessness in their 2015 platform. Our government recognizes the need for substantial investments to be made in housing and is taking action. Our goal is for a more equal Canada for all, including the most vulnerable, one where women and men are empowered to make positive changes that benefit their own lives and our economy as a whole.
As all hon. members appreciate, a stable and permanent home is a launchpad for alleviating poverty and improving the health and well-being of those Canadians who find themselves marginalized. Without a permanent, stable home all else can seem unattainable, and hopelessness gradually pervades until no room remains for even the most modest of personal ambition. As we know, homelessness has a negative economic and social impact on every community in Canada. Therefore, the aim of our government's homelessness strategy is to provide new and expanded supports because we believe that one homeless Canadian is one too many.
As I said, communities participating in reaching home will work toward a 50% reduction in chronic homelessness over the next 10 years. We are investing $2.2 billion over that period to achieve our goal. By 2021-22 we will have doubled annual investments compared to when we took office. We will build on the successful adoption of housing first as a best practice, and work with communities to develop and deliver data-driven system plans with clear outcomes. This new outcomes-based approach will give communities greater flexibility to identify, test and apply innovative solutions and evidence-based practices that achieve results for vulnerable Canadians.
Reaching home funding will also provide communities with the tools they need to deliver systems plans, coordinated access to services and better local data. While providing a strong framework within which the communities can work, the government recognizes that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. Through reaching home, we will be reinforcing the community-based approach, delivering funding directly to municipalities and local service providers.
Throughout our engagement process, the government heard that the greatest asset of the current homelessness partnering strategy is that it is a community-based program. Through reaching home, the government will reinforce this approach and expand the program's reach to new designated communities. New communities will be added through an open and transparent application process to be launched later in 2018. This expansion will not affect the funding received by the existing 61 designated communities.
In Quebec, the homelessness partnering strategy is delivered through a formal Canada-Quebec agreement that respects the jurisdiction and priorities of both governments in addressing homelessness. Since 2001, five agreements for joint implementation of federal homelessness programming have been concluded, including the current agreement for 2014-2019. In order to implement reaching home and allocate funds in Quebec beyond April 1, 2019, negotiations will be undertaken with the Government of Quebec with the objective of concluding a sixth Canada-Quebec agreement.
We also need to better understand and address the overrepresentation of indigenous peoples in Canada's homeless population, and to help achieve, this our government will increase dedicated funding for indigenous-led homelessness initiatives. This funding will support the availability of culturally appropriate services for indigenous peoples living in vulnerable conditions, including indigenous women, youth and mothers with children.
Reaching home will also create a new territorial homelessness funding stream that will collapse existing regional funding streams into a single envelope and offer more flexibility in how funding can be used to address the unique homelessness challenges in the territories.
Over the last year, we worked in consultation with stakeholders, provinces, territories and indigenous partners to understand how Canada's federal homelessness program could be redesigned to better reduce and prevent homelessness across Canada.
Before that consultation, the committee that I chair, the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of People with Disabilities, conducted a poverty study. Many members who have read that study know that a huge pillar of that study was affordable housing. In my riding, we helped frame the national housing strategy with some foundational work that we did on that study.
Our reaching home initiative is possible thanks to the points of view and encouragement we gathered from Canadians throughout those numerous consultations.
So to reiterate, as a starting point, we will continue to deliver funding directly to municipalities and local service providers to support the most vulnerable Canadians in accessing and maintaining a safe, stable and affordable home.
We will also give communities more choice. Of course, the housing first model has proven to be very useful for reducing homelessness in Canada and it will continue to be a priority for reaching home. However, we will remain open to innovation in service delivery, to better support any vulnerable population that is at risk of ending up on the street, such as youth, women fleeing domestic violence or people suffering from addiction or mental health problems.
We will work with communities to help them target and reach specific results together. Our national housing strategy supports community engagement to meet local needs and this is why reaching home supports a collaborative, community-based approach.
Simply put, reaching home will adapt to people instead of making people adapt to the program.