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

As Ontario continues to grow, the province 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.

Market housing supply initiatives

Ontario introduced numerous housing supply initiatives and related legislation between 2019–2024:

  • In May 2019, the government introduced Bill 108, More Homes, More Choice Act, 2019 – to cut through red tape and get more homes built faster.
  • In March 2022, Bill 109, More Homes for Everyone Act, 2022 included further actions to streamline approvals, protect consumers and increase supply.
  • On October 25, 2022, the government introduced Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022. Bill 23 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, Bill 97, 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.
  • In April 2024, Bill 185, 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 announced the Building Faster Fund (BFF) in August 2023, a 3-year $1.2 billion fund to support eligible municipalities that meet or exceed the housing targets they have pledged to achieve by 2031. The fund rewards eligible municipalities that make significant progress against their targets by providing funding for housing-enabling and community-enabling infrastructure.

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

Community housing initiatives

With regards to community housing — housing that helps people with low and moderate incomes who can’t afford today’s high rents — Ontario made changes to its legislative and regulatory environment to help preserve the existing supply of community housing. As of July 1, 2023, the new regulatory framework was fully in force. It is intended to improve the system for those who live and work in it.

A key feature of the new framework is to encourage community housing providers to sign service agreements once their original obligations end so they can continue to be eligible for funding opportunities through programs such as COCHI and OPHI to support the delivery of community housing. Ontario continues to work with sector partners to support implementation of the new framework and to support change management.

As described in prior NHS Action Plans, 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 (known federally as Canada Community Housing Initiative — CCHI)
  • Ontario Priorities Housing Initiative (known federally as PT Priorities — PTP)
  • Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit (known federally as Canada Housing Benefit — CHB)

Ontario is providing affordability assistance to a significant number of low-income households through the COHB program and is creating substantial amounts of affordable housing through investments in COCHI and OPHI and intends to continue these investments in the final 3 years of the NHS agreement.

Ontario has also taken significant steps to achieve NHS targets and outcomes through other non-NHS programming. This includes the provincially-funded Homelessness Prevention Program (HPP) and Indigenous Supportive Housing Program (ISHP), as well as the federally-funded Affordable Housing Fund (AHF), which has provided capital funding for the construction of new affordable housing units that are supported through ongoing HPP operating funding.

In the last 3 years of the NHS, Ontario’s plan is to primarily focus on the creation of rent-assisted units, to ensure the 19,660 expansion target is met by 2027–2028. The target will be achieved through several measures which are informed by feedback received during the regional engagement sessions with all 47 of Ontario’s SMs and its 2 IPAs.

NHS initiatives and vulnerable sub-populations

To address the needs of vulnerable sub-populations in Ontario (for example, Indigenous households) who have a disproportionate number of households in CHN, Ontario has identified priority groups for its NHS initiatives.

For instance, the Rental Housing component of OPHI aims to create affordable rental housing for households that are on, or eligible to be on, social housing waitlists. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • seniors
  • persons with disabilities
  • Indigenous peoples
  • people with mental health or addictions issues
  • survivors of domestic violence
  • those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness
  • recent immigrants
  • working poor
  • veterans
  • racialized groups

The COHB program is primarily intended to support vulnerable individuals and households in housing need. The following vulnerable populations under the NHS have priority for COHB support:

  • survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking
  • persons experiencing or at-risk of homelessness
  • Indigenous persons
  • seniors
  • people with disabilities
  • young adults

Ontario has also made policy changes to the COHB program to meet the unique needs of Survivor of Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) households, who are overrepresented by women. Specifically, SGBV households are given priority access to COHB and will no longer be removed from the social housing waitlist if they accept COHB.

Consultations on final action plan – what we heard

Ontario’s distinct delivery model shows the value and the importance of our SMs and IPA partners. In August 2024, MMAH held five, 2-hour long sessions with SMs to discuss Ontario’s final NHS Action Plan, including how to meet the province’s NHS targets, with a focus on the target to expand rent-assisted units by 19,660 by March 31, 2028.

Sessions were hosted regionally, with 1 session each for the Eastern, Northern, Western, Central regions and a session specific to the City of Toronto. The ministry also held distinct conversations with IPAs.

The discussion focused on how Ontario could continue to work with its partners to successfully meet the obligations under the NHS with a specific focus on how to meet targets to expand rent-assisted units. Overall, SMs:

  • Want to be partners in finding solutions and desire to “be at the table” when Ontario is negotiating with the federal government for future affordable housing programs and funding (for example, through a trilateral table or agreement).
    • SMs deliver housing and homelessness prevention in Ontario and feel like there is a lack of understanding about their role in Ontario’s system.
  • Highlighted the importance of stable, long-term funding for programming.
  • Raised concerns and cautions about reducing the flexibility of provincial programs and allocating targets, and noted:
    • The importance of the current programming that is funded using COCHI.
    • That preserving existing community housing units is vitally important.
    • The various local pressures put on communities as they work to successfully support existing and new community housing units.

In response to the concerns and considerations raised by SMs, as well as the requirements of the NHS Bilateral Agreement, Ontario’s plan prioritizes the creation of new rent-assisted units, while providing SMs with discretion to determine how they will fund these units while addressing other areas of critical housing need, such as funding for rental affordability assistance. This will be accomplished through SMs NHS budgetary planning process, as detailed below (see Expansion Target).

In addition to the roundtables held with SMs, MMAH held separate conversations with both IPAs in September 2024. The IPAs reiterated many of the same concerns raised by SMs, and distinctly raised the need for Indigenous partners to make decisions based on community need and the need for more opportunities for Indigenous communities to own units. The ministry plans to address these concerns by allowing for ongoing program flexibility amongst both IPAs.

In the event that additional programmatic changes are implemented (such as an applications-based funding process for existing NHS initiatives), the ministry would inform SMs and IPAs well in advance of any requests for proposals to give them sufficient time to coordinate with their providers.