As most of you know, Canadians will soon have a National Housing Strategy. At this point, the federal government in conducting consultations on the strategy, and there are many ways that citizens, housing organizations, community groups, and others can get involved.
There is a survey on the site www.letstalkhousing.ca if you haven’t already taken it. There’s also a spot that you can use to upload comments or ideas in the form of a document. You can do both of these before October 19. Since students in my fourth-year Bachelors course are currently working on a project in a public housing community, I’m having them upload their ideas on affordable housing to the National Housing Strategy website next week.
Housing, public health, and community organizations have been involved through a national stakeholder roundtable and expert roundtable. A huge variety of issues discussed including:
- options for allowing seniors to stay in their homes as long as possible through accessibility modifications
- rehabilitation of on-reserve housing and involvement of Indigenous communities on CMHC boards on the development of new housing
- better access to financing options for individuals, including assistance for new homebuyers who want to move out of rental housing
- better communications strategies between agencies to ensure better maintenance of public housing
- removing barriers such as lengthy development permit processes
- tax incentives for rental housing such as deferring taxes if a rental building is sold and the proceeds reinvested in a new rental building
- allowing the federal government to support municipalities in deferring development charges for rental housing
- immediate rehabilitation of existing social units
- a more sustainable operating model for social housing
- portable housing benefits, paid up to the cost of actual rent, leaving the tenant with choice
A major emphasis on Indigenous housing (quality, financing, roles and responsibilities of institutions) was a common thread, and I doubt anyone would argue that this is severely needed. Another main theme was providing options across the housing continuum. As we know, all three levels of government and the private sector are necessary for more stable, long-term initiatives in affordable housing but the federal government and CMHC were repeatedly singled out for leadership in developing strategies and partnerships. You can view videos of the closing sessions here, and transcripts will soon be available: https://www.letstalkhousing.ca/media/video/index.cfm
I encourage everyone to participate through the website, and stay in touch for updates on this exciting new federal policy by subscribing to updates (there’s an option to include your email address at the end of the survey). The government is planning to release a summary of this first consultation phase on November 22.
