What Toronto wanted in the federal budget for housing — and what it got

One of the central pieces of the federal budget unveiled Thursday was affordable housing — $10 billion earmarked to tackle the crisis country-wide.

It's a mix of funding for projects and policy changes aimed at making housing more affordable.

So what was Toronto looking for and what did it get?  And what will the budget mean for one of the least affordable cities in the country?

Much of the $10-billion investment focuses on boosting the supply of homes, something that is key for Toronto. 

The city was eyeing an extension of funding for a project it's partnered on with the federal government: the Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI).

That wish was granted. The budget proposes to extend the program, which creates new affordable rental housing for marginalized people experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness, at a cost of $1.5 billion over two years.

"That is an important initiative. In Toronto alone, between Phase 1 and Phase 2 [of the RHI], we have about 1,000 units," said Coun. Ana Bailão, a deputy mayor and the chair of the planning and housing committee. 

"And again, these deeply supportive housing units are very important as part of the housing continuum."

The largest portion of the $10-billion budget pledge is $4 billion dedicated to what the government is calling a "Housing Accelerator Fund." The money will be for municipalities like Toronto to speed up housing development by slashing red tape, and the federal government estimates it can create 100,000 new units over five years.

When it comes to speeding up development, Bailão says the city has projects on the go for which they'd like to partner financially with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) — mainly its Housing Now initiative, which activates city-owned sites for the development of affordable housing within mixed-income, mixed-use, transit-oriented communities.

"I think all orders of government need to work together because if they really want to build 100,000 units ... we have 15,000 here in the pipeline that need their financing and we need to make sure that financing is there," said Bailão.

There were no specific pledges to address retaining the supply of affordable rental units by tackling the practice of "renovictions" — where landlords buy lower-income housing units or buildings and evict tenants so the apartments can be renovated and put on the market at much higher rents. 

However, the Trudeau government is committing to conducting a review of the role of large corporate players in the market and the impact on Canadian renters and homeowners. 

"While we're talking about increasing supply, we also need to focus on minimizing the daily and monthly losses of truly affordable housing," said Douglas Kwan, the director of advocacy and legal services at the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario.