Report urges feds to spend more on affordable housing, wipe out homelessness
Posted October 20, 2016 8:54 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA – A new report on homelessness proposes nearly doubling federal spending on affordable housing over the next 10 years to effectively eliminate the problem.
Two groups, the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness say that would effectively make homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring.
The report, submitted in advance of a promised Liberal national housing strategy, recommends that proposed federal spending of about $22.6 billion over the next 10 years be increased to about $43.8 billion.
It says the increase would amount to an additional $50 per capita annually.
The report also says the spending strategy would help end a problem that costs the Canadian economy more than $7 billion a year.
The federal government has already promised to increase spending on affordable housing, but the two groups say those increases don’t go nearly far enough.
