Ontario budget facing push back in regards to housing funds

The Ford government’s tabled budget is drawing in plenty of push back, mainly on the province’s plan to address affordability and housing.

One budget item that is drawing attention is the housing file, as the Ford government says it’s committing nearly $2 billion to housing and water infrastructure.

Big city mayors and the association representing Ontario municipalities say it isn’t enough to cover the downloaded housing costs cities endure.

“This is a significant investment to get the housing we need, to provide more funding to municipalities on a cautionary basis, to help and move to get more housing built, plus the building more homes fund is doing its job,” Ontario’s Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy said.

Approximately a billion dollars will go directly towards municipal housing projects, while the remaining will cover water infrastructure.

“We are not seeing the funding for affordable homes, non-market housing and the government is failing and leaving themselves at risk to lose the federal government’s $355 million dollars for social housing,” Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said.

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Meanwhile, the province says housing starts are projected to rise over the next several years, however, the numbers are still far below what’s needed to meet their target of 1.5 million homes by 2031.

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) says this year’s tabled funding for housing falls short for cities to offset the loss of development fees.

“Mayor Horwath just mentioned last week that it’s about less than a third, projections are showing over the next 10 years municipalities are slated to spend more than $250 billion and of that, 100 billion is growth related,” Colin Best from AMO said.

The Tories say they’ll also empower cities to impose taxes on vacant homes for additional revenue, but there are calls for more money on matters like affordability and homelessness.

“Cities do need some new level of agreement with the Ford government to address these crises’ today, we saw a paltry $120 million on homelessness, that will not go very far,” Political Analyst Keith Leslie said.

READ MORE: Billions of dollars of new funding for health care in Ontario budget

A new funding model the Association of Municipalities are calling for to avoid raising levies like property taxes.

“It’s frustrating getting the provincial and federal governments to work together and get a solution because municipalities are getting the brunt of the costs for services,” Best said.

“That’s why we’re calling for a review on municipal financing, property taxes should not be carrying costs for healthcare and social services.”

The AMO says since 2004, they’ve had a memorandum of understanding with the province to meet monthly to discuss new legislation, an agreement the association says is slated for renewal this year.