Feel free to change the text below to personalize the message. Send the letter by email to the Minister of Finance (minfin@manitoba.ca) and CC the Minister responsible for housing (minhah@manitoba.ca) and the Premier (premier@manitoba.ca). BCC provincial@righttohousing.ca
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The Honourable Adrien Sala, M.L.A.
Minister of Finance
103 – 450 Broadway
Winnipeg, MB R3C 0V8
Dear Minister:
I am writing in support of the Right to Housing Coalition’s recommendations for Budget 2025.
Housing is not just a basic human need, essential to survival, health and well-being. It provides a foundation to improve education and employment outcomes, reduce crime and poverty, improve physical and mental health, address gender-based violence and issues connected to substance use, and reunite families involved with Child and Family Services. Additionally, we cannot end poverty and homelessness without ensuring access to housing.
Thousands of people are unable to find stable housing in Manitoba. Private rental units are unaffordable to people experiencing housing insecurity and homelessness. For example, renters in the lowest quartile of incomes spend 51% of their income on housing. This has escalated the demand for non-market, social housing where rents are capped at 30% of household income. More than 6,000 households were on the waitlist for social housing as of May 2024. With nowhere else to go, many people stay with friends, family, in shelters, or outside. According to the 2022 point in time count, more than 1,200 people experience homelessness on any given night in Winnipeg alone. Another 4,000 more are conservatively estimated to be experiencing hidden homelessness. The Manitoba government’s plan to end chronic homelessness includes no new commitment to expand the social housing supply.
Since the federal government reduced spending on social housing in the early 1990s, the Manitoba government has relied almost exclusively on the private market to produce low-rent housing. It is clear that this 30-year-old experiment has failed. All levels of government must do what is necessary to address the housing crisis for low-income renters and reinvest in social housing. We urge the Manitoba government to do its part beginning with the following investments in Budget 2025:
- A capital and acquisition fund to add 1,650 rent-geared-to-income social housing units in 2025/26 owned by public, non-profit, and co-op housing providers, as part of a long-term commitment to add 10,000 social housing units by 2034.
- A $232M capital maintenance fund plus an operating subsidy fund to protect existing social housing and ensure no units are lost due to disrepair or lack of subsidies.
- Funding to ensure social housing tenants can access highly trained addictions, mental health and primary care professionals as well as community support workers to stabilize tenancies and achieve other goals.
There are clear ways to address housing needs in Budget 2025. I strongly urge the Manitoba government to support the recommendations put forward by the Right to Housing Coalition, which have been endorsed by more than 90 organizations across Manitoba.
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CC:
The Honourable Bernadette Smith, M.L.A., Minister of Housing, Addictions, and Homelessness
The Honourable Wab Kinew, M.L.A., Premier of Manitoba