PM’s billion-dollar plan for homelessness, mental health in Manitoba

A new centre for mental health and addictions in Winnipeg, which could open as early as 2029, was rolled out by the prime minister Friday as part of $1 billion earmarked in the federal budget to tackle homelessness in Manitoba.

“Here in Winnipeg, as in many cities across Canada, the homelessness crisis is acute,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said at a news conference at Wehwehneh Bahgahkinahgohn, the former Hudson’s Bay Co. building in downtown Winnipeg, alongside Premier Wab Kinew, Mayor Scott Gillingham, Indigenous leaders, businessman Mark Chipman and others.

“Most people experiencing homelessness in Winnipeg have been without a home for six months or more. Some have lived this way for years, some for decades.”

Still to be determined is the location of the facility, which officials likened to a hospital, and similar details of 2,000-plus supportive and transitional homes, which are included in the funding, for people who are or are at risk of being homeless.

The prime minister was in the city one day after his government announced $30 billion in the 2026 budget toward its goal of ending homelessness across Canada within 10 years.

He said the first investment will be Winnipeg’s $200-million centre for mental health and addictions, which will have acute and outpatient care combined with permanent housing and co-ordinated support services.

The provincial government will operate the facility. Carney said it will be modelled on Toronto’s Dunn House, a four-storey modular housing building with 51 homes for people who use hospital emergency rooms the most.

Statistics provided by Dunn House last year showed the facility’s residents experienced a 52 per cent decrease in ER visits compared with the year before they moved in.

Kinew said Winnipeg’s centre will be there for any Manitoban who wants recovery. He credited Chipman, executive chairman of True North Sports and Entertainment and the Winnipeg Jets, “for making the hospital happen through sheer force of will.”

Chipman said he met with Carney a year ago to discuss the severity of Winnipeg’s situation and ways the community, including the private sector, and governments could find solutions together.

Chipman told the news conference the budget announcement far exceeded anything he could have imagined resulting from the meeting.

He said Winnipeg now has an opportunity to create a full continuum of housing.

“You need to think of this literally as a medical facility where people can be triaged, they can be stabilized. The supports that they need are very, very unique,” Chipman, joined by media baron and Jets co-owner David Thomson, told reporters afterward.

“Those supports are co-located and lined up, including that they can be housed so they’re not just going into the ER and back out onto the street.”

He will serve as a member of the centre’s steering committee.

Carney said the city and province will provide public land for the 2,000 housing units, allowing the projects to be built sooner and cheaper. Ottawa will provide up to $800 million in funding.

Carney said Manitoba’s government will operate the homes and provide supports to residents, including employment training, income support and mental health and addictions care.

Kinew, who set a goal of ending chronic homelessness in Manitoba by 2031, said the province will spend $84 million per year on the units. He said the plan is a huge opportunity to end the status quo, which isn’t working.

“No one in a country as rich as Canada should ever be homeless. We are going to take the responsibility to ensure that every single person has a home,” Kinew said.

While ideas were spearheaded by community, full credit belongs to Carney for committing to building housing and ending homelessness in Canada, the premier added.

He said the province will consider all types of homes, including modular, and look everywhere in the province to address needs, working with Indigenous governments and communities.

Chipman said the announcement will allow the Business Council of Manitoba’s new collaborative housing alliance, which raises private and charitable capital to build “deeply” affordable and supportive housing, to accelerate the delivery of more than 300 units in the near-term.

Both he and Thomson are among those who’ve provided money to the alliance.

Carney and others who addressed reporters celebrated the partnership between Indigenous, federal, provincial and municipal governments, the private sector, philanthropists and front-line organizations.

Previous attempts to solve the homelessness crisis were too often inadequately resourced, poorly co-ordinated and not sustained, Carney said.

Federal funding will extend to some local groups that provide ground-level services, including End Homelessness Winnipeg.

“It really is the generational change. It is an investment that we have never seen before, and we have a real opportunity in Winnipeg, in Manitoba and in Canada to actually end homelessness,” said Jennifer Moore Rattray, the organization’s CEO.

She said some details, including how quickly funding will flow to organizations, are still to come.

Southern Chiefs’ Organization, which hosted the news conference, is converting the former Bay building into a mixed-used development with 373 housing units.

SCO has not received confirmation if it will receive some of the funding for new housing projects, but Grand Chief Jerry Daniels said the organization expects to be involved in some way to help those experiencing homelessness, addictions or mental health challenges.

“We’re hopeful for them and that this will help alleviate some of the hopelessness that we see in the streets,” he said.

The Manitoba Right to Housing Coalition was encouraged but left with questions after the announcement, said member Shauna MacKinnon.

She said Manitoba’s need for additional permanent housing units is significant.

“The problem that we have now is there’s nowhere for people to go from transitional housing. It seems to us we should be thinking about all of the housing being potentially permanent,” MacKinnon said.

Frank Ulrich, executive director of Union Gospel Mission, which provides Christ-centred programs to Winnipeg residents struggling with poverty and addiction, said loving, supportive home environments, not just roofs over heads, are key to helping people out of homelessness.

He’s never seen a funding announcement of this scale for Winnipeg. He said it speaks to the severity of crises in the city.

“It’s devastating, what is going on outside,” Ulrich said.

chris.kitching@winnipegfreepress.com