Affordable housing emerges as a critical city election issue

A shortage of safe, affordable housing might be Peterborough’s most pressing social problem, and housing has been front and centre in the current municipal election campaign.

That municipal debate took a turn into cross-government controversy as a result of sparring between the two candidates for mayor, incumbent Daryl Bennett and challenger Diane Therrien, currently a Town

Ward councillor.

In response to Therrien’s focus on the need for more social housing, Bennett has twice said that the federal government’s National Housing Strategy won’t provide money for new housing here until after next fall’s federal election.

Peterborough MP Maryam Monsef, a Liberal government cabinet minister, then delivered her own response, calling on “whoever” is elected to city council to work with Ottawa to create housing.

Monsef pointedly stated that the federal government has been investing in housing here and that other municipalities have taken advantage of cash that is available “right now.”

The clear inference was that Peterborough has been slow off the mark to access what she described as $40 billion in National Housing Strategy funds available over the next 10 years.

As is often the case there is some truth in what both the mayor and the MPP had to say, and some overstatement.

The National Housing Strategy, announced last November, is a welcome upgrade to Ottawa’s contribution to social housing. It does promise $40 billion over the next decade but that figure is somewhat misleading. According to an analysis by the Centre for Urban Research and Education at Carleton University, there will be about $15 billion in new federal grants. The other $25 billion comes in the form of new loan money available through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. and about $12 billion from existing programs that were wrapped into the NHS.

New money to help build housing is not yet available. Provincial governments had to sign on to the NHS before it could be implemented. Ontario reached an agreement in April and money won’t be going out to Ontario municipalities until mid-2019 at the earliest (assuming the new Progressive Conservative government goes along.)

So, housing projects could get new NHS money before the next federal election – but not long before.

Monsef is right in saying that existing federal programs have helped develop housing here in the past year. However, the city has done more, including borrowing $24.5 million to finance 119 new apartments for seniors and single mothers now under construction on McDonnel St. The federal-provincial contribution to that project was just over $1 million.

It should also be pointed out that new housing stock is only part of the solution to housing shortages and homelessness. The NHS also includes funds to repair and maintain existing social housing and for rent supplements.

Perhaps the most important point Bennett made is that NHS funding for new housing requires local partner contributions, and not all of the local money has to come from municipal governments.

As Monsef said, the City of Peterborough should do its share.

But until federal and provincial grants and subsidies dried up, service clubs, churches, non-profit agencies and private developers were among the leaders in developing social housing projects.

Now that the NAS has put Ottawa and Queen’s Park back into funding mode it would be good to see more non-government partners rejoin the game.