The Trudeau government must act “immediately” to deliver more affordable housing to Canadians, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Wednesday, after new data was released, showing Canada’s rental-vacancy rate has dropped to its lowest level in a decade.

“Everywhere in our country, people are struggling to find a place to call home,” Singh told reporters in the House of Commons foyer. “It’s not just folks who are homeless; there are folks who can’t find a place to rent. They are folks who can’t find a place to buy, they are seniors who can’t find assisted living.”

“This is truly a national crisis.”

The federal Liberals, however, maintain they’re making “historic investments” in housing to make up for years of underfunding and poor policy decisions, but it will take time for this money to take root.

“The housing crisis was literally built up over 25 years, and to move from standing still to a building capacity that will meet the needs of Canadians is not going to happen overnight,” said Liberal MP Adam Vaughan, parliamentary secretary to the minister of Families, Children and Social Development, and a former Toronto city councillor.

“Even if you announced another billion dollars to the housing program, it would take two to three years for these buildings to get built.”

On Wednesday, the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation reported that the country’s vacancy rate for rental properties dropped from three to 2.4 per cent in 2018, as demand grew at a faster clip than supply. The federal housing agency reports that 37,000 new purpose-built apartments were added in Canada this year, but demand increased by 50,000, largely attributable to increased immigration and more young people — buoyed by stronger employment growth — and seniors looking for rental housing. The last time the national vacancy rate sat this low was in 2008, when it dropped to 2.3 per cent.

Rental markets in Canada’s most populous cities were far tighter than they were nationally, with vacancy rates in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Ottawa all hovering below two per cent. Toronto and Vancouver posted vacancy rates of 1.1 and one per cent, respectively, in 2018, compared to 1.6 per cent in Ottawa and 1.9 per cent in Montreal.

Of Canada’s six metropolitan areas with populations over a million, only Calgary (3.9) and Edmonton (5.3) posted vacancy rates higher than two per cent, as Alberta’s commodity-powered economy continues to struggle amid global falling oil prices. Meanwhile, Gatineau, Que., and Victoria recorded vacancy rates of 1.2 per cent, while Kingston, Ont., posted a rate of 0.6 per cent.

Singh blamed years of underfunding by consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments since the 1990s for creating a “massive” national housing gap, and called on Ottawa to “immediately” provide additional resources to start construction of new non-market and co-operative homes.

“You’ve got to get back into the business of building those units,” he said.

Vaughan countered that the Liberals invested more than $5 billion in housing in their first budget since forming government in 2015, and another $40 billion as part of their 10-year National Housing Strategy announced earlier this year. This government, he said, is addressing the “complete continuum” of housing, providing substantial funding for new construction and subsidies to bolster affordability.

“Our National Housing Strategy and our approach to housing … is a substantial push into the financing, subsidy, and support with grants and land, to get the rental housing market back into a strong and healthy state,” Vaughan said.