Moe’s mismanagement of affordable housing deepens emergency room crisis
REGINA - In light of news that there are 3,000 vacant Saskatchewan Housing units across Saskatchewan while people are freezing to death on the streets, Official Opposition Leader Carla Beck and Social Services Critic Meara Conway condemned Scott Moe’s Sask. Party government’s mismanagement of housing stock and called for a plan to fill them.
“In a resource-rich province like ours, every Saskatchewan resident should have a roof over their head,” said Beck. “With 3,000 empty units and people struggling with homelessness across Saskatchewan, making housing safer and more accessible is a no-brainer.”
The Official Opposition was joined today at the Legislature by Dominika Kosowska. Many low-income people like Kosowska are struggling to find housing amid the affordability crisis despite the Saskatchewan Housing Corporation sitting on thousands of empty units, 700 in Regina alone.
Documents obtained by the Official Opposition show that the Sask. Party government’s failure to house people is costly and has put immense pressure on already overburdened emergency rooms. Over the last three years, there were over 1,200 visits to Saskatchewan emergency rooms for cold weather injuries.
“This government’s abject failure on housing is putting even further pressure on our overburdened hospitals,” said Conway. “We need action now and the hang-up is not the complexity of the situation, like Minister Makowsky claims. It’s an appalling lack of will on the part of Scott Moe’s Sask. Party government.”
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