Ottawa, Ontario (April 12, 2024) – The National Housing Accord authors – the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, REALPAC, and the PLACE Centre at the Smart Prosperity Institute – welcome the release of the federal government’s new housing plan, Solving the Housing Crisis: Canada’s Housing Plan.
The plan, announced today by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Minister Sean Fraser, is the most comprehensive and ambitious housing strategy by a federal government in over 40 years. We commend the government’s bold vision reflected in this housing plan to make housing affordable for everyone.
The plan closely aligns with the National Housing Accord, released in August 2023, which laid out a multi-sector roadmap to solve Canada’s rental housing crisis.
The new housing plan, when fully implemented, will have a positive and material impact on the housing crisis by establishing the foundation for further private investment and enabling large-scale construction of new homes. The federal government has already opened up tens of billions of dollars of new housing investment since August 2023, with additional measures expected in Budget 2024 next week.
“This new housing plan will start to get builders building and investors investing,” said Michael Brooks, CEO of REALPAC. “This is the tailwind that both for-profit and non-profit investors and builders needed to begin moving the dial on accelerating construction and affordability in Canada.”
“Young Canadians who are struggling to pay their rent or who have given up on the dream of homeownership should find some hope in this budget,” said Mike Moffatt, Founding Director of the PLACE Centre. “The policies introduced today should spur significant growth in construction, making it more affordable to rent or buy a home in the coming years. There is more that the federal government can and should do – but this is a really good start.”
“Homelessness is a housing problem and measures introduced today to build more market and affordable rental housing will lead to reduced homelessness in the long term.” said Tim Richter, President and CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. “Extending funding for Reaching Home, dedicated funding to help communities implement housing-focused responses to encampments and unsheltered homelessness, and a new homelessness reduction accelerator fund will go some way to supporting community efforts to prevent and reduce homelessness, but more must be done.”
Key next steps to build on today’s announcement include creating a Homelessness Prevention and Housing Benefit to protect vulnerable renters today, expanding investment in social housing, and further changing investment rules to attract the trillions of dollars of private capital required to maximize the potential of this new plan.
We look forward to working with the federal government to implement the announced measures and to take further steps towards solving the housing crisis and ending homelessness in Canada.