Human Resources committee  My understanding is that it is certainly in place in Ontario and that there are agreements in place with most of the provinces. I couldn't speak to whether or not the dollars are landing in people's bank accounts yet. I'm sure there are others on the call who could answer that qu

Human Resources committee  I think the challenges are fairly consistent. It's a difference in scale. In a lot of smaller communities, they don't have shelters per se, so they're scrambling to find alternative arrangements in motels and in other places, community homes and things like that. One of the chal

Human Resources committee  I don't know. The rural communities really did struggle with things like PPE and funding for things like isolation shelters or some kind of sheltering arrangements. I know the homeless system, by and large, was able to access PPE only through federal funding, because the provinci

Human Resources committee  As I mentioned in my statement, I think the federal government has been, to its credit, very quick and very responsive. I speak to Adam, the minister, their staff and the reaching home officials regularly. They've moved very quickly. To be honest, that was one of the single mos

Human Resources committee  They've used the money in several ways, everything from buying personal protective equipment to hiring the staff necessary. When you create an isolation shelter, you rent rooms at a hotel or buy a hotel with this money, you still need to staff all of those things, so they've been

Human Resources committee  I would say so, but a word of caution there is that due to lack of testing we may not see it all. Given the health some homeless folks have, what COVID looks like and what they may have look very similar, but absent of confirmed testing of everybody in the homeless systems in Can

Human Resources committee  I think we appear to have fared better than places like Italy or long-term care. Again, we're not out of the woods yet. I don't want to brush over the impact this has had on the homeless system. The homeless system and shelter providers are really getting battered. It's a diffic

Human Resources committee  There are a range of measures. I think we could set up a fund that allows the non-profit sector and others to buy up the housing. The mayor of Montreal created a right of first refusal for the city to buy properties that might be distressed or up for sale. We could do that nation

Human Resources committee  I think there are three things that I would do. First, I would effectively double the national housing strategy investment. I would move the investment forward so that a lot of the money is spent over time, with more of it at the back end than at the front end. I think you need

Human Resources committee  I think the federal government has a very important leadership role in housing and in ending homelessness in Canada. That's why we've been asking for that leadership in supporting the national housing strategy. There are no silver bullets in ending homelessness. There are a lot

Human Resources committee  I think there is a very real risk of that, as COVID-19 seems to be impacting those with lower incomes and more precarious employment more. When we see eviction bans lift and we see the CERB stop at some point and income supports stop, I think we may well see a surge in homelessne

Human Resources committee  I think it could be both. For the vast majority of people—about 85% of people who experience homelessness in Calgary and across Canada—they're in and out really quickly. It's usually a disruption of income in some form, a loss of a job or something like that, and they can usually

Human Resources committee  I think you'll probably see increased pressure on the rental market. People who aren't able to own their home anymore may find themselves renting, and that would put pressure on the rental market and may make it more difficult for people to move out of rental into housing. In pla

Human Resources committee  It's tough to say, but I think anywhere you see people with lower incomes losing their employment and high housing costs, you'll see the pressure and potentially the increase in homelessness. It can happen in large cities and in small cities. The dynamic is essentially the same.

Human Resources committee  The short answer is not really. Longer term, organizations like Habitat for Humanity or some forms of attainable home ownership can actually move people out of social housing and out of rental housing. They can be an important part of the housing continuum, but people experienci