Mr. Speaker, I am so proud to rise to speak to our NDP motion from our wonderful colleague, the member for Saskatoon West.
Canada is facing an unprecedented housing crisis. Housing prices are exploding. I see it in my riding of Essex in all the small communities. What is happening in Toronto is starting to come down to southwestern Ontario. The cost of homes are becoming unaffordable for families. Bidding wars are happening, changing the entire affordability of homes, but also putting so much out of reach for young people and young families that want to fulfill the dream of owning a home and having something stable for themselves. We see rents increasing. There are competitions for rental units now, something we had never seen down in our region. It is really starting to come to us in a big way.
I certainly recognize that this has been an extreme challenge for Vancouver, Toronto and larger cities, but this is reaching rural Ontario and rural Canada. It is no longer just a housing crisis in big urban centres. This is impacting everyone.
We are talking about rural communities where there is very little access to transportation. There are fewer opportunities for employment. Not being able to find affordable housing or rental space is a challenge most folks cannot overcome. Unfortunately, they end up leaving communities where they have grown up, where their family, friends and support base are, because they are simply priced out of living in the towns they grew up in. That is unacceptable.
There is such a long wait-list for non-market housing, and the homelessness rate is increasing as well. There has been quite a conversation going on in Windsor about the increase in homelessness on our streets. In our municipal elections, there have been folks talking about the way to address this. What we think of as big city issues around homelessness, affordable housing, affordable rental units, and availability are becoming issues for everyone in Canada. That is certainly true in my riding of Essex.
Action on the housing crisis is needed now. The lack of affordable and adequate housing is very troubling, but it is unacceptable that in a country as wealthy as ours, we have all of these people with so much wealth desperate for affordable housing. Housing is a right.
There are measures taken by the government, but it does not seem to understand the urgency of this situation for people who are struggling to afford their homes, or to even find a home that is affordable.
I think of my wonderful legislative assistant, Melanie Sanderson, who is spending her last days with us here in the House. She is moving out to B.C. with her husband, Matt and her one-year-old daughter Violet to join the B.C. government. She will be missed horribly. A hard part of her leaving and going to this wonderful new opportunity has been trying to find housing. In Victoria, trying to find affordable housing for a young family is next to impossible. It is completely out of reach. They find themselves in a situation where they are going to have to live with some family members for a while.
This is what is becoming the reality for this generation and the next generation of families in Canada. They have to seek alternatives to housing because there are no affordable rental units available. There certainly are no affordable homes available. They are being priced out of what in the past was something it was accepted that families would do. When I was married and had a young family, people would get a home. It is a step in life. One goes to school, has a family and a home. That step is being removed entirely for our next generation. That step has been pulled out from under them by the government and its lack of action.
The idea that there is some type of housing support that is coming before the next election, before many years beyond this, is ridiculous. Families are not fooled by that. They hear the words of the government. They hear the intention, but they are not seeing it backed up by action and the resources necessary to make it a reality. That worries me for so many families across Essex who are struggling to find housing. We simply do not have enough affordable housing, and it is a challenge to find space. With the cost of real estate going up, if we do not start investing in affordable housing, in co-op housing, in housing that will help people at their most vulnerable, even shelters, then what are we doing?
This is simply a broken system. Addressing the concerns of Toronto is not good enough in Canada. We need to address the concerns of rural Canada from coast to coast to coast, including our indigenous communities. We need to have a plan that will address everyone's concerns, not a small number of people who certainly are suffering under the issue of affordable housing, there is no denying that.
It really is disheartening to see all of this funding being pushed way far out. It is very difficult for people who hear the words of the government and have some hope, who think that the government hears that they are struggling for housing, yet nothing ends up happening. There are no resources to come to Essex, to come to southwestern Ontario, to come to regions that desperately need it. What the government is presenting as its housing plan is simply not acceptable.
I want to go back a bit and talk about housing as an investment. Safe and consistent affordable housing brings dignity to the lives of people. A safe home is also a bedrock for families. It is where families can focus on finding a good job, getting education, raising their families and so much more. That is what I want for families in my riding of Essex.
I will tell members a little about Windsor-Essex and the low income we have there.
In 2013, a national household survey showed that our low-income population was at a rate of 18.3%, compared to 13.9% across Ontario and 14.9% nationally. We are well above these averages. Therefore, we already have a very vulnerable population in our region.
In a 2010 study, in Windsor, 33.3% of low-income households were located in very low-income neighbourhoods. This is the highest percentage across Canada. Poor housing options are a vicious cycle that is almost impossible to break out of, especially for our youth.
We could have a conversation about the challenges that face our youth, such as affordable education and finding good jobs in our communities. To then face the ultimate challenge of not even being able to have a roof over their head is something that is driving young people in my region out of their home communities and away from their families, which is heartbreaking.
I want to say that gender also plays a role. We are here celebrating gender equity this week across Canada. There is no place that economic division in Canada is split more widely than it is among gender lines. The inequality is all the more striking when we talk about housing statistics. In 2010, a study found that in Windsor-Essex 41.8% of female-led, lone-parent families lived in poverty. That is more than three times the general population for our region.
We have a crisis of poverty in our region. We have one in four children living in poverty in Windsor-Essex. Housing is such a basic right for people, regardless of their income. However, those who are the most vulnerable are the ones who suffer the most when we do not have a comprehensive strategy to ensure that people have a roof over their heads in our country.
Seniors are living on fixed incomes. I think about Jim in my riding who is living in co-op housing. Jim has a small pension. He was living in co-op housing when the current government raised the GIS, which he also is receiving. It raised the GIS by such a small amount, and on the heels of that happening the co-op housing raised his rent. Therefore, Jim ended up with $5 extra a month to go and have a Tim Hortons coffee. It is unacceptable. Our most vulnerable, our seniors, our senior women are filling our shelters because they are homeless. They have nowhere to go. Affordable housing is completely out of their reach. They are receiving the bare minimum. Many of them are widows. Because many of our manufacturing facilities have closed in southwestern Ontario, they have pennies on the dollar of their husbands' pensions. Keeping their home is paramount to their health, and to the health of all of our communities.
We owe Canadians the right to housing in our country.