On September 17, the government announced that were going to continue funding the Homelessness Partnering Initiative, the Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program and the Affordable Housing Initiative. The total commitment is for 1.9 billion dollars over the next five years.
This sounds impressive. However, 350 million dollars per year spread across the entire country will barely maintain the status quo. If you factor in the rising costs of delivering these programs and the growing need, we will be no further ahead in solving the housing problem five years from now than we are today.
Canada remains one of the only developed countries without a comprehensive national housing strategy. The funding announcement that was made is a good downpayment that may prevent us from slipping even further behind. However a new government must be committed to bringing all the stakeholders together from government, non-profit housing providers, homebuilders and community agencies to develop a national housing strategy that will see the kinds of resources committed to solving this problem.