Nipissing District Housing Needs, Supply & Affordability ... - dnssab

The trigger year of 1997 can clearly be noted, when housing expenditures ballooned for
local governments while falling off substantially for the province (as noted by Pomeroy,
there has always been some level of local spending on housing since 1990, especially
by Ontario’s larger cities who participated in the early cost sharing of public housing with
the province). This funding transfer has been a contentious issue for many of Ontario’s
municipalities and it has created a barrier towards increasing the housing supply, as
many municipalities are cash-strapped and do not have the financial means for
additional housing investment. Locally, it has also created a divide as some
municipalities feel that “social housing is a federal and provincial responsibility” – this
has resulted in tension and blurry lines between housing roles and responsibilities (see
figure 12, page 12). Given the above charts, it’s not hard to see where the resentment
comes from.
1.2 Canada –Ontario Affordable Housing Program (AHP)
In Nov. 2001, the Federal Government announced a cost-sharing program with the
provinces, with the objective of increasing the supply of affordable housing. Agreements
with the provinces would be negotiated individually and specific to each. In May 2002,
the Ontario Provincial Government and the Federal Government signed the Affordable
Housing Program (AHP) agreement, allocating approximately $500 million over the next
5 years, for 10,500 new units. The funding was to be a 1:1 matching contribution:
approx. $250 million from the federal Government, matched by 250 million from the
Province, Municipalities and other private & non-profit partners. There were three
primary areas of funding: affordable rental housing (urban), affordable homeownership
(urban) and affordable housing program (remote). While this agreement represented a
movement back into affordable housing production by the Governments, it was
considered to have fallen short by many, due to a lack of committed funding and the
province /municipalities being unable to meet their matching contributions.
In April 2005, a ‘new’ Canada-Ontario Affordable Housing Program agreement was
signed by the federal and provincial governments. Under the new agreement, the federal
and provincial Governments have agreed to a cost-matching contribution of $301million
each and municipalities are not obligated to match funds (some municipalities in the
province however, are contributing funding to the program). The primary objective of the
AHP is to increase the supply of affordable housing supply through four (4) main
components: Rental and Supportive Housing; Rent Supplement /Housing Allowance;
Northern Housing and Homeownership. By 2010, it is intended that the program will
have assisted 20,000 Ontario households.
The early phase of the AHP program has produced the first affordable housing units in
Nipissing District since 1993 (35 units through PHARA) and there has been full take-up
of the District’s AHP allocation of 65 housing allowances. Additionally, there are currently
affordable housing projects in various stages of development within the program,
representing a number of new affordable housing units for the District. 9 Given the recent
history of social housing as described above, the AHP activity marks a significant turning
point and is a positive step forward. However, as the following housing indicators and
the rest of this report will show, affordable housing needs to be kept in perspective: the
District is in acute need of affordable housing and while the recent AHP activity is a
welcomed start, continuous housing activity will now be needed in order to address both
the backlog of unmet housing need, as well as the future need.
9. The AHP is covered in more detail, further on in the report (see page 196).
Nipissing District Housing Needs, Supply & Affordability Study, May 2008. 5