Ontario’s focus on expanding infrastructure projects to support building new homes will help increase the province’s housing supply. But advocates say the efforts are too little, too late.
“The province is doubling down and making some historic and milestone investments in housing-supportive infrastructure — water, wastewater, roads, breaches, transit — the core infrastructure that builds strong communities,” said Neil Rodgers, Interim CEO of the Ontario Home Builders’ Association, which represents Ontario’s residential construction industry.
Ontario’s 2024 budget allocates $1 billion toward “housing-enabling municipal infrastructure projects” in municipalities, and quadruples funding for water infrastructure for future housing projects to $825 million.
Budget 2024 also continues Ontario’s Plan to Build, a $190-billion investment over 10 years to build critical infrastructure projects such as highways and transit lines. First introduced in 2022, the plan’s focus is on expanding public transportation to attract housing and businesses to new areas.
But Ontario’s investments are not tackling rising housing prices, says Paul Kershaw, founder and executive chair at Generation Squeeze, a non-profit that advocates for intergenerational wellbeing.
Instead, the budget predicts home prices will continue to rise. Without a commitment to build substantially more homes, Ontario is only punting the issue down the road, Kershaw says.
Not moving urgently
Ontario’s 2024 budget allocates $1.2 billion over three years to reward municipalities that achieve their housing targets. Funds are awarded to municipalities that reach a minimum of 80 per cent of their “provincially assigned housing target for the year.” Those that exceed the target get more funding.
Rural and Northern communities that are not assigned a provincial housing target are also eligible, provided a municipality consults with the province on housing projects that fit the community’s needs.
But British Columbia, with only one-third of Ontario’s population, is spending about the same amount to incentivize housing, says Kershaw. Ontario and B.C. both have increasingly unaffordable housing markets for people who are middle to lower-income.
“I don’t understand why Ontario is not moving as urgently,” said Kershaw.
The Western province has also cracked down on practices that contribute to the housing shortage, such as passing laws to control short-term rental housing and prevent “renovictions.”
Ontario has caught up on regulating vacant homes in the 2024 budget, with the province authorizing municipalities, counties or regions to impose a tax on such homes.
Currently, only Toronto, Ottawa and Hamilton can impose this tax, with the former two imposing a one per cent vacant home tax. Municipalities will be given a policy framework “that sets out best practices for implementing a Vacant Home Tax,” the budget says, but there are no provincial requirements for the tax rate.
Since 2017, Toronto has passed different bylaws to crack down on short-term rentals. But a recent investigation by the Toronto Star found rental investors are finding ways to skirt the law.
But the “goal is housing affordability,” said Kershaw.
“In the budget, they’re saying home prices are going to rebound… that’s not a commitment to housing being for homes. That’s a commitment to housing being for investment returns,” he said.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canada’s national housing agency, estimates Ontario will need 1.48 million new homes to achieve affordable housing by 2030.
In 2022, the provincial government announced a plan to meet this goal, but it set a target in 2023 of only 110,000 new homes. While Ontario largely met this target, at this pace it would take 15 years to build the 1.48 million homes it is projected to need in six years.
Incentivizing more housing supply through high-density builds has become a hot topic in the province. Last month, Premier Doug Ford refused to allow four-storey, multi-unit housing to be built alongside residential homes without approval from municipal governments.
Threat to health
Delaying building new affordable housing supply has dire consequences. Canada has seen a surge in homelessness due to the rising cost of housing.
Not addressing the homelessness crisis will inflame economic woes, says Jesse Rosenberg, director of policy at the Wellesley Institute, a non-profit that advocates for improvements to economic and social conditions that affect people’s health.
“It’s incredibly expensive to have all these people homeless… [It is] a huge cost to our health-care system, huge impacts on our economy,” said Rosenberg.
More than 19,000 people are homeless in Ontario, according to regional data collected in 2021 by the Homeless Hub, a project under the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. More than 7,300 of those individuals were in Toronto.
Ontario’s 2024 budget allocates $152 million over the next three years to support those with unstable housing, mental health and addiction issues.
But none of those funds will go toward building more supportive housing.
The Wellesley Institute estimates more than 18,000 support units — housing made to lift homeless people out of poverty — are needed.
The average life expectancy for homeless women and men is 42 years, compared to 84 for housed women and 79 for housed men, according to a 2023 Toronto Public Health report.
“It’s a huge threat to health,” said Rosenberg. “Ignoring the problem is not free.”
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