Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the opportunity to comment on how foundational housing is and how it is interrelated with many other issues we face in our communities.
When I was a social worker, we talked about the impact of homelessness on people's mental health. That was a long time ago, 30 or 40 years ago. What has happened is that when we pulled out the support for affordable housing, those who were most vulnerable were impacted first and we developed a very expensive system of picking up people's lives, almost literally, on the streets, bringing them to hospitals, helping them and putting them back out on the streets.
When we talk about making housing and homelessness a priority, we start to prioritize the people in our communities who are most vulnerable now. Not having stable, safe, affordable places to live has a big impact on people's mental health and prevents them from moving forward in their lives, to become healthier or to deal with mental health issues.
It is a key foundational piece. We could make a huge difference in this country to so many people if we made housing and homelessness prevention a priority.