Far too many Canadians are struggling to find homes they can afford. Solving Canada's housing crisis requires immediate action to bring down costs, cut red tape, and build homes more quickly. The Government of Canada is stepping up with a bold new approach to increase the supply of housing in Canada, and most recently launched Build Canada Homes, a new federal agency that will build and finance affordable housing at scale, while catalyzing a more productive homebuilding industry.
One of the early investments of Build Canada Homes is $1 billion to build transitional and supportive housing for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. It will collaborate with key provincial, territorial, municipal, and Indigenous partners to pair these federal investments with employment and health care supports.
Today, the Government of Canada and the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH) announced an important step in their work together to take measurable, data-driven action to reduce homelessness in communities across the country.
The Hon. Gregor Robertson, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure, announced nearly $7 million in federal funding for innovative projects through the Homelessness Reduction Innovation Fund (HRIF) during the annual National Conference on Ending Homelessness. This investment will support 16 communities from across Canada to find local solutions that will rapidly and measurably reduce homelessness.
The HRIF-administered by the CAEH-will invest $45 million over three years to help communities develop targeted, data-informed initiatives to prevent and reduce homelessness. This first round of funded projects includes a range of innovative approaches in communities across Canada, including:
- St. Thomas, Ontario - Creating a "Prevention Team" to work with households that have exited out of chronic homelessness and are showing early signs of housing instability to prevent housing loss before it happens.
- Fort McMurray, Alberta - Enhancing housing support by securing 30 additional housing allowances, hiring two housing coordinators, and adding a landlord support liaison to improve connections for people experiencing chronic homelessness, while streamlining pathways into stable housing through collaborative case conferencing.
- Windsor-Essex, Ontario - Implementing new and enhanced veteran-focused services and community partnerships with a goal of reaching Functional Zero Veteran Homelessness within a year.
Through HRIF, the CAEH is providing one-on-one coaching and support to funded communities and will share successful approaches nationally so that successful models can be scaled across Canada.
This funding is part of the federal government's $1 billion commitment to Reaching Home: Canada's Homelessness Strategy. As CAEH supports communities in strengthening local homelessness response systems, the Government of Canada is simultaneously investing to double the pace of housing construction over the next decade. The recent launch of Build Canada Homes-the federal government's new one-stop-shop for affordable housing-is part of the effort to ensure that communities have sufficient deeply affordable and community housing, so everyone has a safe and stable place to call home.
Ending homelessness in Canada will take all of us-governments, community organizations, service providers, and local partners-working together. This is a positive step forward to helping our most vulnerable, and providing the necessary resources for communities and partners-including municipalities, service providers, Indigenous organizations, and housing providers-to eliminate chronic homelessness across Canada.
