Build Canada Homes
Build Canada Homes (BCH) was proposed during the federal election campaign as a new federal housing entity aimed at massively scaling up the government’s role in affordable housing development. The plan’s goal is to double Canada’s residential construction to nearly 500,000 units annually, aiming to reverse decades of under-building and address the national housing crisis.
As the national voice of community housing, CHRA is working to ensure that Build Canada Homes reflects the needs, experiences, expertise, and priorities of the community housing sector.
Urban, Rural, and Northern Indigenous Housing Strategy
The pursuit of an urban, rural, and northern (URN) Indigenous housing strategy is a top advocacy objective for CHRA and the CHRA Indigenous Caucus.
Canada’s United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act requires the Government to implement UNDRIP in co-operation with Indigenous peoples. CHRA supports a forIndigenous, by-Indigenous approach to housing. Only an Indigenous-led approach can adequately deliver holistic, serviced-based community housing that empowers Indigenous peoples and communities.
An important component of providing safe, affordable, and culturally appropriate housing for Indigenous people is providing housing to those who live in urban, rural, and northern (URN) environments. According to the Parliamentary Budget Office there are approximately 677,000 Indigenous households living in URN areas, of which approximately 18% or 124,000, are in housing need.7 This represents a gross overrepresentation of Indigenous people in need, emphasizing a systemic failure that impedes reconciliation.
Budget 2022 committed $300 million toward the URN Indigenous Housing Strategy, with $281.5 million successfully delivered through the National Indigenous Collaborative Housing Inc. (NICHI). Budget 2023 committed an additional $4 billion over seven years, which has not yet been fully allocated.
Indigenous housing providers cannot keep waiting to deliver urgently needed housing development for Indigenous people living in urban, rural, and northern areas.
CHRA urges the immediate release of an additional $300 million in funding to NICHI to create urgently needed housing delivery for Indigenous people living in urban, rural, and northern areas and to close the historical housing gap in housing access.
Housing Canada: A Sovereign Plan to Protect Canadians and Build a Resilient Housing System
In response to the trade war launched by the Trump administration, a coalition of leading Canadian organizations from across the housing system has come together to propose a policy plan to build resiliency, safeguard the housing industry, and protect Canadians.
The trade war will have a direct, negative impact on the Canadian housing market at a time when millions of Canadians are already struggling to find a safe and affordable place to call home. It will strain Canada's economy and labour market, and worsen unaffordability, which will further drive housing insecurity and more Canadians into homelessness.
The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (CAEH), the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), Habitat for Humanity Canada, and the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association (CHRA) recognize these challenges and, together, are acting swiftly in response.
Housing Canada: A Sovereign Plan to Protect Canadians and Build a Resilient Housing System is a plan that identifies 10 actionable pillars aimed at responding to the challenges at hand:
- Create an immediate housing safety net for Canadians.
- Protect renters from falling into homelessness.
- Double the share of community housing.
- Ensure access to the land and infrastructure required to build communities.
- Create resilient housing material supply chains.
- Develop a housing skills agenda for Canada.
- Reform taxes to facilitate homebuilding.
- Streamline permissions to facilitate homebuilding.
- Accelerate innovation to build faster, less expensive and better homes.
- Rapidly expand Urban, Rural and Northern Indigenous Housing.
Canada Community Housing Growth Fund
Doubling the share of non-market community housing will require a strong and robust sector of community housing providers. Our proposed Canada Community Housing Growth Fund (CCHGF) is a sector-led model that strengthens and grows the community housing sector by investing in training, capacity-building, knowledge transfer, and professionalization to get greater number of non-profits development-ready and prepared for growth.
The CCHGF model provides funding directly to community based organizations, with priority to Indigenous-led and Black-led organizations, through a collaborative co-development process that leverages the organizational capacity of community based fund managers to develop adaptable and culturally sensitive programming.
We thank our partners in this proposed initiative: The National Indigenous Collaborative Housing Inc. (NICHI), The Community Housing Transformation Centre, and The Black Communities Technical Housing Resource Centre.
Blueprint for Housing
Over the past several years, Canada has witnessed significant change in community housing, including a significant reengagement of the federal government. Given this change, in mid 2021, CHRA announced the launch of a "Blueprint for Housing" initiative.
CHRA’s Blueprint for Housing is an extensive policy document that will help inform CHRA’s advocacy efforts over the coming decade as we work towards our goal of ensuring that all who live in Canada have access to safe, affordable, appropriate housing.
Informed by an extensive consultation process with CHRA members, housing leaders, and stakeholders, the Blueprint for Housing was born of a sector-wide realization: that existing housing policies and programs are not doing enough to ensure that all who live in Canada have homes that are affordable and meet their needs. The Blueprint outlines the key issues facing Canada’s community housing sector and identifies 27 recommendations to address them.
The Blueprint exercise took place over three phases:
Phase 1: Development of a background document containing key questions (Summer/Fall 2021)
Phase 2: Engagement with CHRA members and expert stakeholders (Fall 2021/Winter 2022)
Phase 3: Development of a report presenting proposals (Winter-Summer 2022)
The Blueprint for Housing document was released to the public on September 7, 2022.
For more information on the Blueprint for Housing, contact Kenneth Milner at kenneth@chra-achru.ca.