Non-profit admits it underestimated Winnipeg’s housing crunch

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/09/2024 (361 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

End Homelessness Winnipeg admits it missed the mark when it set a target for new housing units in 2019.

At that time, it estimated 1,340 housing units would need to be created by 2025 to meet demand; however, its latest report shows that was a “very moderate target.”

Jason Whitford, the organization’s president and CEO, said Wednesday thousands more units were desperately needed.

“The number should be closer to 4,000 needed. I think we need to build quickly and continue to build. It just needs to be ongoing especially with the housing crisis.”

He said new units haven’t kept pace with demand, which has ballooned amid a boost in inflation and immigration to Canada.

“We have to do things faster,” he said.

The report, which will be discussed by the city’s executive policy committee at its meeting next week, noted 157 housing units were built or being developed in the last year, while 3,132 new units in total have been created since 2019.

Scott Gillingham, who continues to champion the issue since becoming mayor in 2022, said the city is focused on getting more housing built.

“Building housing, and making it easier for developers to build housing, has been, and remains, a priority for myself and this council. The city is doing more to get housing built than it has done in generations.”

Whitford said he believes programs such as the Housing Accelerator Fund that was launched by the federal government, of which $122 million will be managed by the city, will help reduce the homeless problem, but it will take time.

The loss of affordable homes due to arson, privatization and building closures doesn’t help.

“(People who are homeless) want to be able to go to school, to raise a family, live safely, have security, and have a quality of life. They need a place to live.”

The organization’s report says the percentage of emergency shelter users who identify as Indigenous was 62.4 per cent last year, down from 68.8 per cent in 2021, but up from 56.9 per cent in 2019.

“Our message has been consistent with the right to housing,” he said. “While we’re seeing progress, the message is there, but the action is lagging a bit.”

Gillingham said he noted the over-representation of Indigenous people in the emergency shelter system.

“I know one of the goals and targets of End Homelessness Winnipeg is to reduce the number of Indigenous people facing homelessness and just creating more housing, of course, is the key to reducing homelessness.

Marion Willis, executive director of St. Boniface Street Links, says much more has to be done to address the persistent issue.

Willis said she doesn’t understand why the almost $4-billion federal Reaching Home program, which aims to reduce chronic homelessness in half by 2028, helps Indigenous people who are homeless at a faster rate than others.

She said Indigenous people get help once they have been homeless for six of the last 12 months, while others need to be homeless for 18 of the last 36 months.

“The demographic base of homelessness has become very diverse,” she said, adding it changed post-pandemic and during the drug crisis.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Sunday Passages

Sundays

Kevin Rollason’s Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba.

Sign up for Sunday Passages

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

“Indigenous people are a larger percentage of the (homeless) population, about 55 to 60 per cent, but the rest of homelessness is everybody else. It is our collective failure to recognize the demographic face of homelessness is changing… these are people who had jobs and they had family connections, but it was lost due to the drug crisis. There needs to be more than one approach.

“It is not surprising homelessness goes up every year.”

Whitford said society is paying for decisions made by politicians decades ago.

“The divestment in social housing 20 or so years ago, we’re really feeling the affects now. We need to re-establish that investment.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Kevin Rollason
Reporter

Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press’s city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.

Every piece of reporting Kevin produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.