November 22nd was National Housing Day in Canada. The day is intended to highlight the critical role of housing in the day-to-day lives of Canadians. The provision of adequate shelter sits at the nexus of youth educational attainment, full employment and community well-being. It is also a key social determinant of health. On National Housing Day, Minister Hussein and Yasir Naqvi, Member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre, announced an investment of more than $90 million dollars to support the construction of 270 new housing units. These units will provide shelter to some of Ottawa’s most vulnerable residents, funded through the National Housing Strategy.
This initiative is a boon to National Capital residents in dire need, many of whom are experiencing chronic homelessness. They will also benefit from complementary social initiatives — including on-site community development support. But the symbolic announcement begs a broader question: how effective are the federal government’s efforts to prevent chronic homelessness?
The official answer is profoundly concerning: the federal government does not know.
On November 23rd, during National Housing Week, the Office of the Auditor General tabled its systematic assessment of federal efforts to address chronic homelessness. It found that “Infrastructure Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada did not know whether their efforts to prevent and reduce chronic homelessness were leading to improved outcomes.”
This systemic dearth in post-intervention data is a real head-scratcher. Since 2019, as the lead for the Reaching Home program, Infrastructure Canada has spent around $1.4 billion on preventing homelessness. Yet the department remains unaware of the most fundamental figure—whether chronic homelessness and homelessness have increased, or decreased, in that time frame. Indeed, the department didn’t even bother to collect, nor analyse, any national-level, shelter-use data.
This data-phobic approach stems from a lack of accountability. Fractured oversight of National Housing Strategy programs creates profound communication and coordination gaps. The OAG report found that Infrastructure Canada’s and CMHC’s homeless programs were not well-integrated. Of greater concern, while it leads the National Housing Strategy, CMHC reportedly does not believe that it is “directly accountable for addressing chronic homelessness.” Infrastructure Canada contended that it “was not solely accountable for achieving the strategy’s target of reducing chronic homelessness.” The National Housing Strategy set an ambitious target: “reducing chronic homelessness by 50% by the 2027-28 fiscal year.” The government is five years upstream from this goal, without a dedicated department or corporation that is willing to accept responsibility for its attainment.
This lack of federal accountability and inter-organizational coordination will translate to ineffectual social relief for the most vulnerable. In the meantime, many communities are experiencing an increase of residents in need. In Owen County, for example, the “number of chronically homeless people has quadrupled” since 2020. As a result, many displaced residents are receiving temporary, pandemic-related shelter in motels.
The federal government must lead housing initiatives for those who experience chronic homelessness. It cannot spearhead change while remaining methodically ignorant of exactly who its interventions are targeting, and whether they are benefiting. Canada’s unhoused and vulnerable groups deserve proper government oversight, accountability, and coordination.
Every Canadian deserves a proper roof over their head. During next year’s National Housing Day, the housing minister should cite more figures and make fewer promises.
