Hamilton’s mayoral candidates offer split visions on increasing housing supply

Affordable housing — and how to quickly increase the city’s supply of it — has dominated much of the conversation on the campaign trail to become Hamilton’s next mayor. 

Hamilton’s supply of deeply affordable supportive housing grew by 23 units just last week. Indwell cut the ribbon on the Acorn Flats on East Avenue at Robert Street — its first building designed specifically for families.

Indwell is a member of the Hamilton is Home coalition, a group of non-profit housing providers in the city, which has the ambitious goal of building 5,000 affordable units by 2030.

That is something mayoral candidate Keanin Loomis committed to at a debate hosted by the coalition.

“I am announcing tonight a clear commitment to deliver up to 5,000 affordable units in my first term,” Loomis said Oct. 6, 2026.

Since 2024, the city and its housing partners have built or committed to 2,100 new units.

“Forty times more than the last term of council,” Mayor Andrea Horwath said. “This takes hard work and it takes focus. I established the housing secretariat to help with that.”

City staff have also been directed to select parcels of city-owned land that can be sold to housing providers at discounted rates, something that has not always gone over well with local residents.

Two years ago, Horwath used strong mayor powers to push forward the development of two affordable housing towers in Stoney Creek — against the wishes of the local councillor and hundreds of people who signed a petition saying the city-owned parking lots the towers would be built on are vital for the downtown.

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“We’ve had a housing crisis for a long time for a reason — because the housing wasn’t being built,” Horwath said. “And it’s easy to say, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do it here, I wouldn’t do it there.’ Well, then where do you do it? One of the Stoney Creek lots, in fact, has been identified for affordable housing since 2018, but it hasn’t been built.”

Local councillor Matt Francis, who is running for re-election, says the towers are still the number one issue he is hearing at doors. Both Loomis and Ward 8 Coun. Rob Cooper have vowed to work with Francis to reverse that decision.

“A strong mayor shouldn’t have to use strong mayor powers,” Loomis said. “What I promised from the very beginning is that never would have happened under my leadership. I would have worked with the local councillor. Of course we need affordable housing, it’s very important that we do that. But we need to work with the councillor to find the right place for these particular projects.”

Cooper echoed those concerns about community involvement.

“Nov. 15 is when the new mayor takes over, Nov. 18 the mayor gets signing authority,” Cooper said. “On that date, I will be talking to Councillor Francis, we’ll do a press conference. Councillor Francis will pick a new spot for that and we’ll sign off. So it’s not against building it, it’s just that you have to be in tune to the community.”

For her part, candidate Scarlett Gillespie applauded Horwath’s use of the strong mayor powers in this case. She shared her ideas on how to fix city housing at a debate last week, saying she is the only candidate who has experienced homelessness.

“We must enforce the law, and the city has to use its power and authority to do so, and not let people who are low-income suffer because they don’t understand and cannot relate to suffering with cockroaches and leaks and black mould and efflorescence and all of these infrastructure problems,” Gillespie said Oct. 6, 2026.

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