January – MP Kent Hehr’s Report

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Canada’s first-ever national housing strategy: a game changer for affordable housing in Calgary.

We all know that a home provides more than just a roof over your head. For too many Canadians, a decent home—or any home at all—is simply not within reach. In the worst cases, it forces impossible choices that no family should have to make.

That’s why our government is developing Canada’s first-ever National Housing Strategy. This 10-year, $40 billion plan will allow 500,000 more Canadians to finally have affordable housing that meets their needs.

It’s a really big deal. In fact, it’s a game changer for affordable housing in Calgary and across the country.

I’m especially proud that the strategy focusses on the people who need it the most, including seniors, people with disabilities, survivors of domestic violence, Indigenous Canadians, people dealing with mental health and addiction issues, and veterans.

Over the next 10 years, the National Housing Strategy will:

  • Cut chronic homelessness in half.
  • Create 100,000 new housing units. (That’s four times the number that were built under the previous government over the previous 10 years.)
  • Repair or renew 300,000 existing housing units.

With 1.5 million Canadians currently living in unsafe, inadequate or unaffordable housing (and with 25,000 people having no home at all), this major, integrated plan is clearly badly needed. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s good public policy. Bringing people out of poverty saves us all money in the long run.

After years of past inaction, it’s time to do something big for affordable housing. To read more about Canada’s first-ever National Housing Strategy, visit www.KentHehrMP.ca/Housing.

To contact me, please email [email protected] or call 403-244-1880. You can subscribe to email updates at www.KentHehrMP.ca/email-updates or connect with me through social media (@kenthehr) on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.