As New Brunswick continues to wait for the province’s housing strategy plan, the Housing Hub of New Brunswick has released a list of recommendations into the crisis.
It comes as part of a three-part series that looks into the situation province-wide.
“It’s really making a big and bold call to the province to invest in housing, community housing,” said Housing Hub of New Brunswick chief development officer, Mylène Vincent.
“We’re asking for $1 billion over five years so that we might increase that housing stock, community housing stock, by 10,000 units over that period.”
There are six recommendations in total, including building up the construction sector to make the builds possible and having plans and laws in place to help prevent the loss of existing affordable buildings.
“It is all well and good to build and to build capacity, but we won’t get anywhere unless we stop losing housing stock or affordable housing stock,” Vincent said.
“So having strong action, and we do recommend this in one of the six actions, is to build seismic plans and laws to help prevent the loss of existing housing stock so that whatever we build is net new and really helping facilitate growth, not just make up for lost units.”
While it sounds like a big ask, Vincent says the $1 billion is backed by research.
New Brunswick ACORN co-chair, Peter Jongeneelen, says it is absolutely the amount that’s needed to help with the housing crisis.
“About 1 in 4 people that we’ve talked to that are actually homeless have actually said that, you know, finding a place that they can afford is their number one priority,” he said.
“When they cannot find it, they wind up basically in very precarious situations – couch surfing, living on the streets, literally because they just cannot find a place that they can afford.”
He says people living on social assistance, disability and seniors are struggling.
“I know of people right now that cannot even find a room in a house on social assistance,” said Jongeneelen.
“The rates for just a room is around $600. The maximum they’re going to get on social assistance or disability really is going to be between $680 and maybe up to $750. That doesn’t leave anything else.”
The Housing Hub released two reports ahead of Thursday’s third instalment. The previous findings show that nearly 9,000 affordable housing units were lost between 2016 and 2021, and by the end of this year there will be an implied housing deficit of over 10,000 units.
"Jill Green and the Higgs government always try to defer, defer, defer on this subject... it's time for the action,” said Jongeneelen.
Vincent adds, “There is a significant call to have a focus in rural areas and small population centres and that is, you know, really everywhere except for Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John.”
However, she says that doesn’t mean the three main hubs shouldn’t be a large part of the overall solution.
CTV News reached out to Housing Minister Jill Green for response to the review, but were told she hadn’t had time to review it yet.
A spokesperson went on to say they’re aiming to have the province’s housing strategy released by June 29.
“When we look at it, last year, the Higgs government actually boasted a surplus of $862 million. Now, if $200 million of that was invested into housing over the next five years, there’s the billion dollars. That would put a lot of people that are on the streets into something that’s affordable,” said Jongeneelen.
“There’s no more delaying it, there’s no more deferring it. The longer they wait, the more people are going to wind up homeless or in these very precarious situations.”
