Take ‘a prevention mindset,’ experts urge committee launching study on Canada’s homelessness strategy
Ahead of a parliamentary committee’s study of Canada’s homelessness strategy, Liberal MP and committee chair Robert Morrissey says he hopes to examine the root causes that lead to some people making what he calls the choice to be homeless, making it difficult to reduce their numbers.
“I see it right around Parliament Hill. … There's people that are homeless, living in a tent, and that’s the choice with some of [them]. So why is it? I don’t know,” said Morrissey (Egmont, P.E.I.), chair of the House Human Resources, Skills, and Social Development, and the Status of Persons with Disabilities Committee (HUMA), in an interview with The Hill Times.
“There's a host of factors, but it's important to never give up on speaking to the issue, and trying to address the issue,” he said, pointing to affordability, mental-health issues, and addiction as contributing factors to keeping people out of secure housing.
Despite federal, provincial, and municipal initiatives targeting homelessness, it persists across the country, and so Morrissey said the committee will investigate government initiatives, the “root cause,” and solutions.
He noted the federal government does not have jurisdiction to "get into the direct delivery of health care" that could help alleviate or contribute to homelessness, calling it a "wraparound" issue that is changing as constantly as the demographics of people who are unhoused.
"Which means some people are actually getting out of homelessness," while others remain in the chronic state, he said. "That's telling me that this individual has made a choice, that that's the option they want. Do they consider themself homeless? Probably not."
Morrissey, who acknowledged that position may not be popular, said there are "people from time to time that choose a lifestyle that you may not agree with, or I may not.”
He said the study will take “a broad perspective,” and consider housing affordability, supportive housing, and substance abuse and treatment centres.
“I'm looking forward to hearing something I've never heard before,” Morrissey said.
Liberal MP Natilien Joseph (Longueuil–Saint-Hubert, Que.) moved to study Reaching Home: Canada's Homelessness Strategy, alongside housing affordability, supportive housing, access to treatment, and recovery services for those experiencing homelessness. The committee is accepting briefs from the public until the House rises on June 19, and will also hear from witnesses. Morrissey said the study will be concluded in the fall after the summer break.
Joseph said he's wanted to raise the issue since becoming MP just over a year ago. He said the community groups combatting homelessness in his riding just south of Montreal have told him clearly that prevention is the best way to reduce homelessness.
“I found that Longueuil was experiencing an unprecedented surge in homelessness,” Joseph told The Hill Times. “It’s easier to prevent homelessness through preventative measures than to help someone get off the streets. That’s why I think it’s very important to conduct a study.”
The Liberal government introduced the Reaching Home Strategy in 2019 to support its housing plan and the National Housing Strategy, intending to reduce chronic homelessness by 50 per cent by 2027-28. It’s a goal that Canada's auditor general said had “minimal federal accountability for the National Housing Strategy target to reduce chronic homelessness,” in a 2024 audit.
Reaching Home provides direct funding to communities to address homelessness. So far, it has supported 10,000 projects, and spent a total of $3.6-billion. Reaching Home is up for renewal in 2027-28, with Housing, Infrastructure, and Communities Canada's (HICC) most recent departmental plan making note the drop in 2028-29 planned spending is in part tied to the strategy “winding down.” In 2027-28 HICC forecast $1.15-billion for "housing and homelessness," and $652-million the following year.
Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson (Vancouver Fraserview–South Burnaby, B.C.) declined to comment for the story; instead The Hill Times received a statement from the department.
“In its first six years, Reaching Home helped place more than 112,000 people into more stable housing and has helped provide over 203,000 people with core homelessness prevention services like emergency short-term emergency financial support or landlord mediation,”reads the HICC statement.
Shelters present issues for unhoused, say advocates
Carolyn Whitzman, a frequent committee witness on housing and author of Home Truths: Fixing Canada's Housing Crisis, said the “choosing to be homeless” stance is a false flag.
“Emergency shelters often force people to line up every day for a night's shelter, they refuse pets, they are disease vectors—in short, they are not permanent secure housing, which would be characterized by a lease and a private room with a locked door,” she said.
Whitzman also said the framing doesn’t reflect the reality of the data. She cited a 2014 Mental Health Commission of Canada report, At Home/Chez Soi. The results showed that when people experiencing homelessness and mental-health conditions had access to housing, they had a much higher rate of retaining housing afterwards.
NDP MP Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.), her party's housing critic, said having direct contact with people experiencing homelessness has shaped how she sees housing policy.
She recalled a group of Indigenous community members using her constituency office for warmth during a particularly cold winter in Vancouver because they told her the emergency shelters reminded them too much of residential schools.
“All they could think about is the residential school experience that they had encountered—the abuse and the violence that they were exposed to. And couldn’t stay there,” she said.
“One could say ‘well, they choose to be unhoused.’ Well, they did not choose to be unhoused; there was no suitable home for them to feel safe in.”
She said the committee needs to hear from these kinds of voices to get an accurate picture, especially from Indigenous people experiencing homelessness.
According to the 2022 census, Indigenous people represent only five per cent of the Canadian population, yet a 2024 national shelter study found that 35 per cent of all shelter users in Canada identify as Indigenous. Since 2024, the median rate of Indigenous homelessness per 10,000 had increased from 3.8 in March 2024 to 6.7 in October 2025, but decreased to 5.7 in February 2026, according to national homelessness indicators.
‘A huge, huge gap,’ if Reaching Home strategy not renewed
Jena Weber, policy manager at the British Columbia-based Aboriginal Housing Management Association, said the flexible support Reaching Home gives to Indigenous housing providers is vital for creating the type of adaptable and cultural supports needed to reduce homelessness, and she worries about funding if the strategy is not renewed.
“Without Reaching Home, it would be a huge, huge gap, and I would worry about what would happen,” Weber said. “The province of B.C. had a homelessness strategy, and it ended in 2025, and they didn't renew it. So there are very few homelessness programs that are provincially funded that are available now.”
She said the federal government’s next iteration of the strategy should incorporate the health-care needs of those receiving support.
“Figuring out innovative ways to bring health into housing would definitely be an improvement," she said, including building more supportive housing models.
Kaite Burkholder Harris, executive director of Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, said Reaching Home is a step in the right direction providing federal leadership, but the strategy does not provide enough support for what it's trying to accomplish.
Burkholder Harris worked on Reaching Home from its beginnings in 2019 until early 2020 as a policy analyst working directly with communities.
She said the government's approach relies too heavily on alleviating chronic homelessness, or those living unhoused for over six months.
“We wait until people are in serious need before we help them,” she said. “If we still want to focus on chronic, that's great, but we need to do it from a prevention mindset.”
Burkholder Harris said the federal government should lead the way on developing a true housing-first model with wraparound support.
“It's really key that those standards are set at the federal level, rather than letting that be provincially developed. Because I don't necessarily feel that all the provinces are following the evidence.”
Rebecca Bligh, president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and a Vancouver city councillor, said the Reaching Home program works, but doesn't focus enough on prevention.
“I'm hoping that this committee work is going to be swift,” she said. "We've studied this issue a lot. What we know is—through the municipal experience of providing frontline services, and in hearing from community—that prevention needs to be a key pillar to any housing strategies.”
Feds have history of 'ignoring the evidence,' says expert
There are also concerns about whether this study will be effective at providing answers the federal government does not already know.
Kwan questioned the committee's ability to conduct a comprehensive study if it's not hearing from the people experiencing homelessness first hand.
“I don’t have any expectation that the committee study will reach those very people whose voice needs to be heard,” she said, noting committee members often invite witnesses who already support their views. The NDP, with five MPs in its caucus, does not have recognized status in the House to sit on committees.
Whitzman said she has doubts about the study's effectiveness and the Reaching Home strategy.
“Do I put any hope in HUMA? No,” Whitzman said when asked if this study can identify solutions, and if the government will implement subsequent committee recommendations.
“It frustrates me,” said Whitzman about a long history of reports providing answers to homelessness that she said have gone unaddressed since the Stephen Harper years.
“Canada has a fine tradition of doing pilot projects that show really clearly what should be done, and then ignoring the evidence that's been true.”
Whitzman pointed to two examples where Canadian case studies and research offered a path, but government lacked the follow-through: the 1980s St. Lawrence development where all three levels of government co-ordinated to provide affordable housing to around 10,000 people in Toronto, and the 2014 At Home/Chez Soi report referenced above.
Joseph and Morrissey both acknowledged historic reports on the issue, but said they are looking to provide new, more current, findings.
“We’re not going to rely on studies from 2014,” said Joseph. “What matters to us today is working to reverse this trend. To effectively combat homelessness, we need to address the root causes: increase access to affordable housing, strengthen mental health and addiction services in particular, support prevention efforts, and improve support systems to address long-term instability. That’s what’s most important right now.”
“Obviously there were not the right answers, or we wouldn't be having this conversation,” Morrissey said.
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