On Thursday, housing advocates in Winnipeg joined a national movement pushing for more affordable housing units from Canada’s federal government.
Gathered out front of Liberal MP Dan Vandal’s office, advocates signed pre-written letters, demanding that 30,000 more social housing units be built over the next decade.
Lindsey McBain, co-ordinator of the Right to Housing Coalition (RHC) in Winnipeg, said Manitoba needs one-third of these units.
However, the coalition said pricing for these homes can’t stay status quo. McBain said the crisis may not even lay in the number of units, but who they are affordable to.
“The units that are being created by the National Housing Strategy are not affordable to low-income people,” he said.
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“In some cases, the federal programs were creating what was called affordable units, but were in fact, pricing a bachelor for 1700 (dollars).”
A release from the RHC said, “Despite spending more than 10 billion dollars over five years, Canada’s National Housing Strategy has produced very little social housing for people most deeply impacted by the housing crisis. Only 3% of units funded through the Strategy’s largest program are affordable to people with low incomes and those experiencing homelessness.”
McBain said housing costs should not exceed 30 per cent of someone’s income.
When people can’t afford their housing costs, he said, “then we have all the social problems that come from affordable housing.
“When a family is spending that much of their income on trying to provide housing, then they don’t have money for food. The rent becomes so unaffordable that you find this incredible, growing homelessness problem.”
McBain said he knows affordable housing is possible, because it’s been done before.
“Historically, our federal government did do this (19)73 to 94,” he said. “We were creating up to 30,000 units a year. Now we need to go back to that.”