Overall objectives and approaches

Ontario’s priorities and actions/approaches to address challenges and needs

Ontario has been focusing on several priorities to address the challenges and needs outlined in the section above. Specifically, the province has a comprehensive approach that spans the whole housing continuum, from homelessness and supportive housing to community and market housing.

Market housing supply initiatives and Community Housing Renewal Strategy

The province introduced over 100 market housing supply initiatives and related legislation between 2019-2023:

In May 2019, the government introduced the More Homes, More Choice Act, 2019 – to cut through red tape and get more homes built faster.

In March 2022 the More Homes for Everyone Act, 2022 included further actions to streamline approvals, protect consumers, and increase supply.

On October 25, 2022, the government introduced the More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022. The Act takes bold action to address the housing crisis, with a target of building 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years.

In April 2023, the Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, 2023 further laid the foundation for growth so more homes can be brought online to address a chronic and severe shortage of housing options.

And most recently, in April 2024, the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, 2024 was introduced. As Ontario continues to grow, the government is taking action to cut red tape and support municipalities to build the homes Ontarians need faster, improve quality of life, and create stronger communities for everyone—from students to families to people in need.

The government’s actions are producing results. Last year, for the second year in a row, we saw the highest level of purpose-built rental housing starts in Ontario’s history, at nearly 19,000, topping last year's previous record high of nearly 15,000.

Ontario’s market housing supply initiatives are complemented by Ontario’s Community Housing Renewal Strategy (CHRS)—the province’s plan to stabilize and grow the community housing sector. Community housing helps people with low and moderate incomes who can’t afford today’s high rents to find affordable housing. The strategy is focused on transforming a historically complex and inefficient system into one that is sustainable and ready to help people who need it most.

As part of the CHRS, Ontario has been working diligently with sector partners to improve the legislative and regulatory framework for community housing and to incent community housing providers to stay in the system once their original obligations end. On July 1, 2023, the new regulatory framework was fully implemented. It is strengthening and improving the system for those who live and work in it through measures that include:

• encouraging housing providers to remain in the system by signing service agreements. Housing providers are incentivized to enter into service agreements under the new regulatory framework as they would continue to be eligible for funding opportunities through programs such as the Canada-Ontario Community Housing Initiative (COCHI) to support delivery of community housing.
• requiring Service Managers to set local income and asset limits for rent-geared-to-income (RGI) assistance to ensure assistance goes to those in greatest need.
• improving efficiency and updating accountability rules for Service Managers to encourage them to provide a range of housing assistance matched to household need, including new programs that meet local housing needs.

Ontario continues to work with sector partners to implement regulations and support change management.

In addition, since the CHRS was introduced in 2019, Ontario has delivered on a number of priority actions, including:

• making rent more predictable by simplifying rent calculations for RGI assistance
• encouraging tenants to seek opportunities at school and work by removing previous barriers for working more hours or going to college or university
• protecting tenants who receive child support payments by ensuring their rent is not impacted by payments
• helping people in need access housing more quickly by having tenants prioritize their first choice and accept the first unit they are offered, while allowing Service Managers flexibility to make exceptions in extenuating circumstances
• making housing safer by enabling housing providers to turn away tenants who have been evicted for criminal activity

As described in the first NHS Action Plan (2019-20 to 2021-22), Ontario has also provided cost-matching investments for the 3 NHS initiatives that are delivered by provinces and territories. In Ontario, these initiatives are named:

• Canada-Ontario Community Housing Initiative (COCHI) (known federally as Canada Community Housing Initiative - CCHI)
• Ontario Priorities Housing Initiative (OPHI) (known federally as PT Priorities - PTP)
• Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit (COHB) (known federally as Canada Housing Benefit – CHB)

The CHRS leverages federal and cost-matched funding under COCHI, OPHI and COHB to help sustain, repair and grow community housing, and address homelessness in Ontario. Ontario’s market housing supply initiatives, on the other hand, are not related to the NHS bilateral agreement funding given the focus on market housing supply and affordability. These market housing supply initiatives complement the CHRS in that these 2 initiatives cover most of Ontario’s housing sector.

Ontario is creating significant of affordable housing through COCHI, OPHI and COHB and intends to continue these investments over the life of the NHS agreement. Ontario has also taken significant steps to achieve NHS targets and outcomes through other programming. This includes actions to increase the supply of affordable and supportive housing through the federally/provincially co-funded Social Services Relief fund (SSRF) which ended in December 2022 and the Ontario-funded Homelessness Prevention Program (HPP), as well as the federally funded Affordable Housing Fund (AHF, formerly the National Housing Co-investment Fund) which provided capital funding for the construction of new affordable housing units, which is supported through ongoing operating funding delivered under the provincial HPP, as discussed below.

Supportive housing

In addition to Ontario’s various market housing supply initiatives, associated legislation and the CHRS, another priority for Ontario is to improve its supportive housing system. This system is a complex network of 10 programs across 3 ministries (the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services). The province is currently undertaking a supportive housing review to identify opportunities to streamline and improve coordination so that people get the help they need.

As part of this review, the province engaged a wide range of partners and stakeholders in fall 2020 and winter 2021 to hear their ideas about how the supportive housing system could be improved. In response to the feedback received, partner ministries are working on the following initiatives:

• Developing a common pre-screening approach across sectors to navigate people towards the right housing and supports.
• Establishing local integrated supportive housing planning requirements to coordinate local service planning and delivery of supportive housing across the housing, health and community services sectors. This would improve collaboration, and better respond to clients’ complex needs.
• Conducting a cost avoidance review of supportive housing to better understand how supportive housing can avoid unnecessary use of high-cost provincial systems (such as hospitals).

In November 2022, Ontario’s Associate Minister of Housing, hosted 7 roundtables across the province with key stakeholders to discuss how supportive housing is working in local communities, and how all organizations involved can continue to collaborate to improve supportive housing in Ontario. The ministries of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Health, and Children, Community and Social Services continue to integrate the feedback from these sessions into our work moving forward to improve Ontario’s supportive housing system.

Improving Ontario’s supportive housing system is a long-term initiative, and the provincial government is committed to continuing to work with supportive housing partners to make this critical system work better for Ontarians.

The supply of supportive housing has expanded since March 2020 through funding provided under the Social Services Relief Fund (SSRF), a short-term pandemic response program to help protect homeless shelter staff and residents, provide rent relief, create longer-term housing solutions for vulnerable people and support plans to prepare for potential future outbreaks and/or emergencies. Approximately 1,200 supportive housing units are being created through the SSRF, a portion of which will count towards Ontario’s 15% Expansion of Rent-Assisted Units target, as noted in the tables below. Coupled with Rapid Housing Initiative funding (a federal program to help address urgent housing needs of vulnerable Canadians through the rapid construction of affordable housing) provided by the federal government, this is a significant expansion of supportive housing supply that will help provide housing stability to vulnerable people.

Homelessness

Tackling homelessness is another key priority for Ontario. On March 7, 2022, the province announced a new streamlined Homelessness Prevention Program (HPP) with an additional annual investment of almost $25 million annually — bringing the total investment to nearly $464 million annually starting in 2022-23. The HPP combined 3 programs: Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative, Home for Good and the Strong Communities Rent Supplement Program. The new program is streamlined and simplified so that local service managers can spend less time on paperwork and more time connecting vulnerable Ontarians with the supports they need.

The province also increased funding under the Indigenous Supportive Housing program by $6.7 million in 2022-23, for a total annual investment of $30 million in culturally appropriate Indigenous supportive housing.

In Budget 2023, the province announced that annual funding under the Homelessness Prevention Program and the Indigenous Supportive Housing Program would increase by $202 million annually. With this significant commitment, the province is investing nearly $654 million per year through the HPP and over $41 million through the ISHP. This represented an over 40 per cent increase in annual funding.

Service managers and Indigenous program administrations have flexibility to choose how to best use provincial funding for programs and services that address and prevent homelessness in their communities.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ontario took immediate steps to support vulnerable populations. Shelters and congregate supportive housing providers adapted to public health guidance to keep residents and staff safe. For instance, to maintain appropriate physical distancing and safeguard vulnerable people, shelters and other emergency housing providers re-designed facility spaces and coordinated the virtual delivery of support services where possible. This translated into an increase in demand for services and supports for vulnerable households. In response to these changes and the continued need for services, the provincial government invested over $1.2 billion under 5 phases of the SSRF (described above) ending in 2022-23. The SSRF helped Service Managers and Indigenous Program Administrators keep outbreaks in check, keep vulnerable Ontarians housed, improve housing and homeless shelter solutions, and create long-term housing solutions such as supportive housing.

In 2021, the ministry directed Service Managers to implement a By-Name List that meets provincial requirements under the HPP. In April 2022, the province released new By-Name List requirements that build on the previous requirements and support the goals of addressing and reducing homelessness. The new requirements include a more extensive set of data points, and broader coverage and comprehensiveness that will help Service Managers connect more people to the services and supports they need. These new requirements have been implemented since April 1, 2023. This is to ensure that Service Managers have up to date information from individuals experiencing homelessness to help connect them to the right housing and supports as soon as they are available.

Alignment of Ontario’s priorities with National Housing Strategy principles and consideration of federal human rights-based approach to housing

Ontario’s Community Housing Renewal Strategy (CHRS) is aligned with the National Housing Strategy (NHS) principles set out under 3 themes: people, communities and partnership. Ontario and the federal government have agreed to outcomes and targets for their shared investments that focus on eliminating or reducing housing need for many Ontario households, repairing and sustaining the existing social housing stock, and increasing the supply of community housing over time.

The CHRS also complements the NHS goal of helping advance Canada’s obligations in relation to housing under the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. The federal human rights-based approach to housing (as enshrined in the National Housing Strategy Act, 2019) represents the fulfilment of those obligations. The Community Housing Renewal Strategy acknowledges that when people have the housing they need, they have better health, education and employment outcomes. When housing is affordable and in areas near transit, schools, workplaces and amenities, people have the opportunity to manage their lives and raise their families.