Canada will expand the affordable housing market
One-third of the federal budget will go to housing expenses.
In the latest survey of housing affordability on government programs, the National Housing Council found that they were not keeping up with the number of requests for apartments. In addition, the vast majority of existing housing was found unaffordable.
In April 2022, Canadian Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland released the federal annual budget. Among Canadians, it is called housing, because a third of the new spending (more than $14 billion CAD) is aimed at getting more people to live in their own homes.
In the context of rising inflation and significant increases in rental prices, this was a particularly important step for the Canadian government. The new programs also target a related social agenda: the problem of homeless people, which immigrants and refugees sometimes become.
Among the main points of budget implementation are the following:
- $475 million CAD will be allocated as a housing allowance to those who are facing problems of housing inaccessibility (a one-time payment of $500 CAD);
- a new cooperative housing development program with $500 million CAD in funding and $1 billion CAD in loans to build 6,000 affordable cooperative homes;
- expanding the Rapid Housing Initiative to $1.5 billion CAD to build 6,000 affordable homes;
- $4 billion CAD is to be invested in Housing Acceleration Fund with a new focus on affordability;
- $4 billion CAD will be spent on-reserve housing;
- $562.2 million CAD will be distributed over two years to double the annual funding for the housing strategy Reaching Home;
- $300 million CAD over five years to jointly develop and launch an urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy;
- a $2.9 billion CAD contribution to the National Co-Investment Fund for affordable home construction and renovation projects.
The results of the programs introduced can already be seen today. In large cities like Ottawa, Whitehorse and Saint Thomas, government programs and support from community organizations have reduced housing problems by 19-25%.
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