Housing strategy imitates Manitoba program

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/11/2017 (2871 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The federal government unveiled Wednesday a major reform of public housing programs, emulating how Manitoba funds rental units while calling on the province to boost its spending.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau touted what he called “Canada’s first-ever national housing strategy” during an afternoon announcement at a Toronto construction site.

The strategy earmarks $40 billion of federal dollars for housing, including $15 billion that Ottawa had already pledged. In addition, it proposes an additional $4.3 billion — on the condition the provinces match that number.

It’s the most dramatic federal investment in housing since Ottawa largely offloaded the file to the provinces in the 1990s — though most of it takes effect well after the 2019 election.

“This is a breakthrough for cities and communities,” said Winnipeg Deputy mayor Jenny Gerbasi, who was in Ottawa as part of her role leading the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

The strategy aims to halve the number of Canadians relying on homeless shelters, by securing affordable options for 530,000 households that lack them. It takes a particular focus “vulnerable populations” — such as people fleeing family violence, seniors, veterans and those with disabilities or addictions.

“This is a problem that has seemed intractable for far too long,” Trudeau said.

Jino Distasio, director of urban studies at the University of Winnipeg, said advocates have long pushed for long-term funding.

“It’s such an enormous amount of money,” said Distasio, who has studied the issue for two decades. “I have never seen anything this big.”

While the strategy includes the typical funding for buildings, it also introduces a portable housing credit, which is when rental support is tied to a person and not the building they live in. That allows people to move for work or personal reasons without grappling with finding a public-housing complex.

The Manitoba government is one of the few in North America that already offers such a program, called Rent Assist. More than 30,000 Manitobans are enrolled in the program, most automatically through the welfare system.

Wednesday’s announcement would have all the provinces administer such a plan, with federal support.

The program would start in April 2020, and aim to support rent bills for 300,000 people by 2028.

The entire strategy is backloaded, according to a breakdown the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) provided the Free Press. The current fiscal year amounts to $3.5 billion, rising to $5.2 billion by 2027-28.

Trudeau justified the delay, saying it provides time to craft funding arrangements with the provinces.

“We’ll take some time to determine what exactly the right way is,” he said, adding buildings will need to be finished while pointing at the construction site behind him.

The prime minister said the aim is to have 100,000 new housing units built in the next decade, quadruple the amount built between 2005 and 2015.

The strategy also provides a decade of stable funding for various public-housing and co-op buildings, whose expiring mortgages and funding agreements have been described as a ticking time bomb for 24,000 rental units.

“This will keep families in their homes, and that is super important,” Gerbasi said. “It’s a big day for the local levels of government.”

Her only concern Wednesday was whether the feds will tap on municipalities’ expertise in crafting funding plans with the provinces.

Part of the funding includes $8.6 billion to upgrade and build mixed- and low-income housing, though half of that must come from the provinces.

In a Wednesday phone conference, CMHC officials told reporters they had no estimate of how much each province would be asked to contribute to make up their $4.3-billion share.

Manitoba makes up 3.6 per cent of Canada’s population, suggesting the austerity-minded provincial government may be asked to provide $157 million.

Provincial Families Minister Scott Fielding said the feds briefed the provinces on the housing strategy before Wednesday’s public announcement, and they’ll also meet early next year.

He wrote in a email he was encouraged by the announcement: “But the devil is in the details. We look forward to learning more about the national plan in the weeks ahead.”

The Manitoba government led by Premier Brian Pallister pledged in Tuesday’s throne speech to release its own provincial housing strategy, but it also aims to avoid adding taxes and deficits.

The province has previously declined to fund infrastructure projects in and around Winnipeg because of budget controls, leaving the city to shelve projects after already securing municipal and federal funding.

Trudeau said he isn’t worried provinces and cities will leave federal funding on the table.

“There is not a single mayor or premier across this country that doesn’t recognize that housing represents a real challenge for Canadians,” he said. “We’re all serving the same citizens.”

Distasio said Winnipeg could pony up more funding for projects, as Toronto has done. “The province has been shouldering the financial burden for the last decade, plus. We have to have everybody all-in, to address homelessness.”

The Social Planning Council of Winnipeg estimates 3,000 Manitoba households are unaffordable, overcrowded or in poor repair.

Josh Brandon, a community animator with the group, noted Canada has been the sole industrialized country to lack a housing strategy. He said it has left provinces creating a patchwork of programs that will now have to align with Ottawa.

“It’s going to be extremely tricky to implement it. We’ve had 25 years of the federal government being absent from the scene on housing,” he said.

Brandon said Manitoba tends to get little more than four per cent of federal funds for housing, more than its proportionate share of the population. He hopes the federal funding continues that role, and tops up provincial spending, instead of replacing it.

The federal government also aims to table legislation next spring that would have Ottawa update its housing plans every three years, starting in 2020. 

“Housing rights are human rights,” Trudeau said. “The federal government is not only back in housing, but we’re here to stay for the long term.”

Wednesday’s strategy does not include a plan for housing Indigenous people in Canada. Trudeau said he will reveal a plan next spring that spans issues from urban Aboriginal homelessness to overcrowding on First Nations reserves.

Gerbasi said mayors have raised these issues with Ottawa through FCM meetings, and she noted Winnipeg in particular grapples with a large number of homeless Aboriginal people. The province says it’s also in talks with Ottawa on the issue.

Census data released a month ago showed almost half of households in Peguis First Nation reported being in major disrepair, which 42 per cent of homes in Cross Lake were overcrowded.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca

National Housing Strategy

wfppdf:https://media.winnipegfreepress.com/documents/NHS+Annual+Investments.pdf|Breakdown of housing funding by year (from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation)