HOUSING INDUSTRY

The Analysis of Affordable Housing Supply Created by Unilateral National Housing Strategy Program report, released February 2022, produced by/for the National Housing Council, focuses on three major unilateral initiatives to create rental housing, all of which have criteria to produce affordable housing: the Rental Construction Financing Initiative (RCF), the National Housing Co-investment Fund (NHCF), and the Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI). Together, funding for these programs makes up over half of the topline commitment under the National Housing Strategy (NHS), including both grants and loans, and most of the funding for increasing rental supply. This report analyzes the potential of these programs to address housing need in Canada. A second research report is in progress and will cover housing supply created by bilateral NHS Programs. Some conclusions:

1. Producing deeply affordable rental units is critical for reducing core housing need and homelessness.

2. Housing need is deepest and most prevalent in groups of Canadians that have historically been marginalized and disadvantaged. These groups will be left behind if the housing produced is not affordable to those in need.

3. The supply created by the three programs studied thus far does not, for the most part, meet the needs of those in core housing need. Relatively few new units produced by the strategy thus far could lift low-income households out of core housing need, especially lone- parent families and unattached people.

Low-income households comprise the bulk of those in need, so for the programs studied to have a meaningful impact on core housing need, new supply must be more affordable than what is currently being produced.

4. The RCF'S program criteria were not designed to reduce core housing need. These criteria have resulted in the creation of many units meeting affordability criteria whose rents are well above average market rents. Given this, the weight placed on the program in the portfolio seems out of step with the National Housing Strategy's commitment to addressing housing need.

5. Even if the NHCF and RCF produced units that were deeply affordable, the number of units produced by these programs falls short of the NHS' targets, and well short of the amount of need. It is clear that the increased supply being created by these programs, is not enough to lift Canadians out of need on its own. affordablehousingsupply.com