Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced some significant increases in funding for housing programs in the federal fall economic update Tuesday. That’s good and makes up for the lack of new measures in the federal budget last spring. But the big funding measures are in programs that don’t deliver many really affordable housing. And the numbers of new units expected are modest—loans for 30,000 more rental units, through a program much criticized for producing very few affordable units, and 7,000 new non-profit homes, from a program producing only moderately affordable units.
There is some good news for rental housing co-operatives. The GST rebate on new rental construction will now apply to rental co-ops as well (originally they weren’t included), and Ottawa has some funding for new co-op housing through a program first announced spring 2022 and to be launched in early 2024.
Read the statement here: https://www.budget.canada.ca/fes-eea/2023/report-rapport/FES-EEA-2023-en.pdf