Tell your MPs you agree that the new federal budget is “a sorry disappointment”

Homelessness is rising, and temporary COVID funding homeless funding has ended, without any new money. Young adults are still priced out of the home ownership market. Rents are soaring. A million people were added to our population last year and more are coming. Yet there was no new money for affordable housing in the March 28 federal budget. 

If you write, please let us know at housing@uuhamilton.ca 

Write to your MP and express your disappointment or anger. You might note: 

• that there are 1.45 million households in core housing need, yet the National Housing Strategy aims to help only about one third of them
• that the Auditor General of Canada recently reported that Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and Infrastructure Canada don’t know if National Housing Strategy programs are reducing chronic homelessness, yet there is no mention in the budget of any effort to fix that. 
• The Auditor General also found that rental housing units approved under the National Housing Co-Investment Fund that the corporation considered affordable were often not in fact affordable for low-income households, many of which belong to vulnerable groups prioritized by the strategy. Yet there was no proposed change to fix that flaw. 
• The budget talks of consultations on financialization of housing when what we need is action to prevent the continuing losses of affordable private-sector rentals to investors who “reposition” affordable-rent buildings to much higher rents after renovicting their original tenants. Hamilton has lost 29 units for every affordable unit the city has been able to build.
• You don’t want to add to anti-immigrant sentiment but newcomers seeking places to live will be keeping with people already here. The budget had no proposals on how they will be housed. 

This is not the time to stand pat on housing. We need the National Housing Strategy fixed to fund more truly affordable housing, and we need greater investments in many more units, in more repairs, in more housing benefits and in Reaching Home. 

Read the Housing Advocate’s comments here: https://www.housingchrc.ca/en/budget-2023-fails-to-address-canadas-housing-emergency?utm_source=Email_marketing&utm_campaign=Nov_17_2022&cmp=1&utm_medium=HTMLEmail 

Reach an excellent summary by the National Right to Housing Network here https://housingrights.ca/budget-2023/ which also includes links to other commentaries. 

See letter writing tips here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C5m7BgUH4dBwdROWh0vJSswGHas6NauU/edit