1. The Issues
  2. Affordable Housing and Homelessness

Across this country, we have an affordable housing crisis.

People are living in tents. People are “couch-surfing”. Home ownership is all but a dream for many.

Imagine what our communities would look like if an additional half a million units of affordable housing were built across this country.

The reality is that families, individuals, single parents and seniors alike are unable to obtain safe, secure, and affordable housing. This is a very real struggle for so many in Vancouver East and across the country. This national problem is of crisis proportions and is steadily worsening. For example, 2018 statistics for the City of Vancouver showed the highest number of people living homeless since the first regional homeless count in 2005. Indigenous peoples face even larger barriers to securing safe affordable housing, and accounted for 40% of the homeless people living in the region, despite being only 2.2% of the overall population. These numbers are unacceptable, because each number represents people in our community who are in crisis.

Our current housing crisis started in 1993, when the Federal Liberals cancelled the National Affordable Housing Program.

As a result, this country lost out on half a million units of affordable housing that would otherwise have been built.

The impact is real and significant.  I have met school children who tell me that they are worry about their housing situation.  Women who were fleeing domestic violence are left with no choice but to return to the abuser because she cannot secure housing.  Families had their children apprehended for no other reason other than the fact that they could not meet their housing needs.  The homeless population are becoming more desperate.  In one instance, I learned that a fight broke out because people were fighting for awning space in an attempt to stay dry as heavy rain poured down. It is high time for government to deliver what so many across the country have called for – a National Affordable Housing program.

Housing is a human right
Speech delivered on January 31, 2019 in favour of the NDP Motion to take immediate action on Canada’s Housing Crisis.

IN THE NEWS: CTV - The day after the deal: MPs voice their views on the Liberal-NDP agreement

NDP MP Jenny Kwan said that while the deal doesn’t include all of the policies the NDP want progress on, “it is about getting as much as we can for the people who need the supports and services,” and she and others will continue to fight for more.

“That’s what this agreement is about, getting as much as we can,” Kwan said. “Imagine—if 25 New Democrats can get us this far—what a majority New Democrat government can do.”

NEWS: CBC - How the Liberal-NDP agreement will work and what it might mean for Canadians

The "supply-and-confidence" agreement struck between the governing Liberals and the opposition New Democrats could affect the kind of legislation Canadians can expect to see pass through Parliament between now and 2025.

According to the deal, those key policy areas are climate change, health care spending, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, economic growth and efforts to make life more affordable.

STATEMENT: Canadians struggle as housing costs grow under the Liberal government

The Liberal housing strategy is delivering far less social and affordable housing than it used to and it's Canadians and their faimilies who are suffering for the government's failure. A recent report by the National Housing Council said that the Liberal’s largest housing programs ‘could meet only a fraction of existing need’ and the Parliamentary Budget Officer also said that the affordability gap and housing need will only continue to grow under the Liberal plan. Despite these troubling concerns, the government still refuses to recognize the lack of affordable housing as a crisis.

STATEMENT: People in northern communities can’t afford more broken Liberal promises on housing: NDP

"For years, people living in northern communities have been dealing with a devastating housing crisis while consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments ignored their basic human rights. Houses in northern communities are often overcrowded, in desperate need of repair and many are filled with mould. Despite the Liberals promising to deliver an Urban, Rural and Northern Indigenous Housing Strategy since 2017, Canadians are still waiting. Even these promises are not sufficient to meet the current housing needs which are hurting communities."

IN THE NEWS: G&M - Ottawa touts rapid-housing program as MPs delve anew into probe of home prices

“Projects that would provide affordable homes to vulnerable individuals are falling to the wayside because the federal government is not there to provide support,” said NDP housing critic Jenny Kwan in calling for more funding.

The program targets those who are, or at risk of becoming, homeless, but experts say it is only one part of a larger solution the country needs to address an affordability crisis.

IN THE NEWS: Canadian Press - Housing ministers meet as MPs ready for more hearings on pace of price gains

NDP housing critic Jenny Kwan said the situation requires the federal government to move quickly to expand the stock of affordable housing, and increase atax on foreign buyers to dissuade them from snapping up investment properties.

"This crisis is only going to get worse as long as the federal government continues to allow housing to be treated like the stock market," Kwan said.

IN THE NEWS: Hill Times - ‘In a perfect storm right now’: labour supply, record immigration complicate daunting housing supply problem, say experts

NDP MP Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.) , her party’s housing critic, said that in terms of immigration, “the people who may be coming, would be a range of different people.”
“Some of them are already here who are working hard already to support the Canadian economy in a variety of ways, some of them are renters, some of them are trying to get into the market, and some of them may have the capacity to own,” said Kwan.

“What we absolutely need to do is to ensure that we provide housing in the full spectrum, and if we don’t, all that is going to do is put upward pressure on the demand for affordable housing,” said the MP in an interview with The Hill Times last week.

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