Madam Speaker, as I was saying, we more than tripled the number of folks living unsheltered in just those three years. There is another point-and-count study happening right now, and folks, support workers across Waterloo Region, expect that number to be significantly higher, as do I.
How did it get so bad? We need to be talking about that in this place, so we can focus on real solutions. One reason it has become so bad is that, over the last number of decades, governments of multiple parties have dramatically cut funding for more affordable housing to be built.
In fact, it was as of 1995 that the funding was cut significantly. This has led to the point where, in Ontario, 93% of all affordable homes were built before 1995. It also means that, across the country, our stock of social housing is now at the bottom of the G7, at around 3.5%. Not only have we stopped building the affordable housing we need, but governments have also allowed for the erosion of the existing supply of affordable housing.
Research from the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative shows that, in my community, for every one new unit of affordable housing getting built, we are losing 39. Worse still, we are seeing the financialization of housing as housing is being commodified. We are seeing more and more large corporate landlords buying up and profiteering from homes that used to be affordable, raising rents and evicting folks. Of course, we also have governments that are not investing enough to prevent and reduce homelessness.
This is something that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has looked at very specifically, giving numbers for parliamentarians to consider. To get just a 50% reduction in chronic homelessness across the country, we need to see the federal government increase its funding to seven times what it currently is. The PBO estimates that this would require an additional $3.5 billion a year.
The good news is that we can afford this. We can look to other programs the government currently funds. We can look at subsidies to the oil and gas industry, for example. There is $18 billion there. We can look at the Trans Mountain pipeline; there is $34 billion more there. We can look at the military, which is $26 billion and going up to $50 billion. All we need here is just $3.5 billion for unsheltered folks. We can look to move dollars to those who need it the most.
My question tonight is this: Will the government do better by those living unsheltered and commit the funds we need to close this gap?