$15B in new funding for social housing

The 2017 National Housing Strategy

Pre-Covid, the major housing issue facing Canada was the lack of rental housing, especially for lower-income households. The federal response was the 2017 National Housing Strategy, allocating $15 billion in new federal funding to build new social housing and to repair and maintain existing social housing.

(Post-Covid, after the massive surge in people working from home and needing more space, there’s a shortage of market housing, not just non-market housing, affecting younger people and renters all the way up the income scale.)

Canada's National Housing Strategy was launched in November 2017: Liberals detail $40B for 10-year national housing strategy, introduce Canada Housing Benefit. It focuses on affordable rental housing. What does it include?

• $15B in total new federal funding for housing. Provincial cost sharing is expected to add another $7B. (The $40B headline figure includes existing funding and loans.)

• $4.7B in grants and $11B in loans to build up 60,000 units of new social housing and repair 240,000 units, over 10 years. ("National Housing Co-Investment Fund")

• $4.3B in funding for social housing (including co-ops), replacing federal funding that had been scheduled to expire over the next decade. Intended to sustain the 500,000 existing units of provincially administered social housing, as well as social housing directly administered by Ottawa. ("Canada Community Housing Initiative")

• $2B for a new Canada Housing Benefit, to be matched by the provinces, providing 300,000 households with financial assistance through an average annual rent subsidy of $2500.

A major part of the strategy was the Rental Construction Finance Initiative (RCFI), which provides low-cost, long-term loans for constructing purpose-built rental housing. The interest rate is somewhat higher than the rate the federal government pays on long-term bonds. For renters, purpose-built rental housing owned by a pension fund or REIT is more secure than renting a condo or secondary suite from an individual landlord, who can always reclaim the space for personal use. The RCFI was initially $2.5B at its launch in 2017, then expanded several times in subsequent years.

Commentary at the time:

IRPP, Patrick Gossage: Good reviews (mostly ) for the National Housing Strategy.

Centre for Urban Research and Education, Steve Pomeroy: Making sense of the funding allocations in the National Housing Strategy.

Behind the Numbers, Nick Falvo: Ten things to know about Canada’s newly-unveiled National Housing Strategy.

Wellesley Institute, Greg Suttor: Canada’s National Housing Strategy – The Strong, the Soft, and the Splashy.