Report calls on province to increase investment in social housing

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This article was published 05/03/2024 (635 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A new report recommends Manitoba set up a long-term capital fund to create 1,000 additional social housing units every year for at least a decade.

Echoing recommendations issued last fall by Manitoba’s Right to Housing Coalition, the report released Monday from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives calls for governments to invest in social housing for low-income renters by working together at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.

Lynne Fernandez, co-chair of the seniors’ working group for the Right to Housing Coalition and part of the Manitoba Research Alliance, interviewed local non-profit and public-housing experts and attended an international housing conference in Barcelona before reaching the recommendations in the report.

The consensus internationally is that it’s up to governments, not the private sector, to be responsible for social housing in communities.

“What was really significant for me when I was doing this research was realizing we have the capacity to do this. We’ve got all the tools that we need right here in the Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation,” Fernandez said, talking about the Crown corporation formed in 1969.

The report examines how Manitoba can pay for more social housing to meet demand as existing buildings age or deteriorate and long-term funding agreements expire. It recommends the Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corp. take on low-interest government debt to establish capital, operating and maintenance funds to either build new social housing units or repurpose existing ones. It echoes the housing coalition’s recommendations that at least half of the new units be publicly owned and half by non-profits or Indigenous-led housing organizations. Borrowing money — and political will — is the key to make it happen, Fernandez said.

“Governments have been looking for some magical way to deal with the housing crisis without spending money, and there is no magical way … this is really the only way,” she said.

“In the long run … if we don’t spend this money, we end up spending more money in other areas,” including health care, Fernandez added.

The City of Winnipeg should also be seeking right-of-first-refusal and applying a vendor tax credit to benefit non-profits when private properties are sold, giving priority to the municipality or to non-profits to secure land and buildings that can be developed into social housing. Manitoba needs to acquire more land for social housing development, the report says.

Fernandez writes redeveloping nine surface parking lots the province owns in downtown Winnipeg would be “low-hanging fruit.”

Among the report’s recommendations is the public- and non-profit housing sectors need real-estate market experts who know how to evaluate properties, make acquisitions and access government funding programs, which the report notes can be a complicated process.

The Right to Housing Coalition has previously stated there is a need for 10,000 new social housing units to be built in Manitoba.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Rediscovering How to Build Social Housing in Manitoba