Ottawa, province ink deal to preserve 130,000 social housing units

Joint $4.2 billion investment announced Monday includes pledge to protect social housing stock.

Thestar.com
April 30, 2018
Emily Mathieu

 

Ontario’s ailing social housing stock will benefit from a $4.2 billion investment based largely on a pledge to protect and preserve at least 130,000 units across the province.

“It is important to us that the agreement supported stability and predictability for the hundreds of thousands of Ontario families who live in social housing,” said provincial Housing Minister Peter Milczyn, speaking Monday at the Bayside neighbourhood, at Queens Quay E., near Lower Sherbourne St.

Of the 130,000 units, about 45,000 are in Toronto, he said and are a mix of co-operative, non-profit and Toronto Community Housing units.

“After many years of advocating for the federal government to return to the housing game we now have a national government that has listened,” said Milczyn.

The new deal between Ontario and Ottawa is part of a broad, 10-year, $40-billion National Housing Strategy, announced in November. The strategy builds on Ottawa’s $11.2 billion budget commitment in March 2017 and aims to lift 530,000 families out of unaffordable and substandard housing and reduce chronic homelessness by 50 per cent.

Milczyn and Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, signed off on the deal between the federal and provincial governments as part of a news conference Monday, but full details were not released.

The $4.2 billion investment is split between the federal and provincial governments. Combined with about $2.4 billion in previously planned federal investments in social housing, it will result in the preservation, repair and renewal of more than 130,000 social housing units, according to a joint news release. Part of the $4.2 billion will also be put towards the development and implementation of a portable housing benefit, or rent supplement program.

In Toronto, the active wait-list for subsidized housing hit almost 92,500 households in late 2017, according to city data.

The agreement between Ottawa and Ontario cannot be undone if there is a shift in parties following the June 7 provincial election, said Adam Vaughan, Duclos’s parliamentary secretary.

“While it may have taken us a long time to build the entrance to this program, there is no exit,” said Vaughan. He said the exact dollar amounts will be worked out by the next government, so finer details are tied to the outcome of the election. Multilateral agreements include a requirement that provinces cannot spend less than 20 per cent of money on housing repairs.

“If you are in a (Toronto Community Housing) building you can be assured of three things: one, your subsidies are protected; two, the repair money is locked in for the next 10 years; three, the opportunity for new housing to emerge in your community is also a possibility,” said Vaughan.