This Fall Budget, Call on the Feds to Invest in Scaling Up Social Housing!

Please help us let the federal government know that investing in social housing is essential to alleviating Canada's housing crisis.

An ambitious plan must prioritize housing as the human right that it is, with a robust commitment to social housing affordable to low-income households. If the federal government wants to reduce homelessness significantly, it should implement the Social Housing and Human Rights Coalition’s Fall 2025 budget recommendations to:

  1. Create a minimum of 50,000 net new rent-geared-to-income social housing units each year for 10 years, starting now. These units should be targeted for those experiencing core housing need and homelessness and have rents permanently set at no more than 30% of household income or social assistance housing allowances.

  2. Invest in the acquisition, construction, operation, and maintenance of new and existing public, non-profit, and cooperative-owned housing that meets the unique and varied requirements of people experiencing core housing need and homelessness.

This should be achieved in part by:

  1. Redirecting federal housing investments for market housing toward non-market social housing with rents set at less than 30% of household income. The Rapid Housing Initiative is an example of a program that investments can be redirected to.

  2. Tripling the federal government’s proposed investment of $6 billion to $18 billion to build one million new non-market and co-op housing units over the next decade. 500,000 of these units should be set aside as deeply affordable, non-market units for low-income households with rents set at less than 30% of household income.

  3. Targeting the Rental Protection Fund exclusively to non-market housing providers to produce housing with rents set at less than 30% of household income.

  4. Setting aside public land and buildings for non-market housing providers to produce housing with rents set at less than 30% of household income.

  5. Partnering with other levels of government so that all social housing programs include ongoing operating subsidies that ensure rents are permanently set at less than 30% of household income and targeted for low-income renters.