Trudeau government continues frequent pattern of housing funding announcements

There are so many new federal funding measures, it can be difficult to keep track of them.

“Because we have announced a bundle of things over the last couple of days,” said Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth of Canada Marci Ien.

On Wednesday, the prime minister was in Halifax to announce the $1 billion Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund.

The federal government has also recently unveiled a series of new measures intended to make home ownership more affordable.

“You should be able to afford a place to live nearby,” said Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities of Canada Sean Fraser earlier this week.

Thursday in Halifax, more new funding. This time, the Canada Rental Protection Fund

“A $1.5 billion program that will provide affordable housing providers the funding to acquire affordable housing units, and offer them at affordable rates,” said Minister of energy natural resources John Wilkinson.

All of these recent and frequent funding announcements raise the question: if affordable housing has been a crisis for many years, why is the government only acting now instead of earlier?

“For about 30 years, the federal government was absent from the housing file entirely,” said Wilkinson, who added the issue was previously pushed back to provinces and municipalities, but now the Trudeau government is taking a more urgent approach in response to recent affordability issues. “That came out of COVID-19, that came out of increases to inflation and that came out of rises of the interest rates.”

Developer Danny Chedrawe said new federal programs means apartments in a soon-to-open apartment complex will be made more affordable for renters.

“In this particular location, we are offering 105 units at a maximum rent of $1,722,” according to Chedrawe, who also said there will be savings of roughly $1,000 per month or lower. “Based on the mean income of families here in Halifax.”

It is an example of yet another new federal promise and given the recent pattern, don’t be surprised if more funding announcements are made in the near future.