Highlights from Ontario’s 2023 Budget

Published March 23, 2023

Yesterday, the province of Ontario released its 2023 budget, Building a Strong Ontario. The Ontario Budget largely focused on Ontario’s manufacturing sector, transportation and hospitals.

Most significantly for affordable housing was an additional $202 million a year investment in homelessness prevention and Indigenous supportive housing. While these additional funds are certainly welcome, there is a risk they may end up only offsetting the funding for housing services that was lost due to changes to the development charges rules under the More Homes Built Faster Act.

Also of note was a $24 million over three-year investment in the Landlord Tenant Board (LTB) to help it catch up on its backlog of cases. The backlog at the Landlord Tenant Board has been a key issue of concern for housing co-ops since the Covid-19 pandemic. The province is also expanding access to the Guaranteed Annual Income System (GAINS) for low-income seniors, and tying the benefit to inflation.

Notably absent from the budget was a dedicated investment to create more affordable co-op homes for low- and moderate-income households, a significant part of the population feeling the real effects of the housing crisis. CHF Canada released a response to the budget yesterday highlighting this concern and building off our 2023 pre-budget submission, Time for Action: Solving Ontario’s affordable housing crisis.

There is a growing consensus among economic and housing policy experts that based on current trajectories market-based housing solutions will likely never be affordable to many Ontario households. While Budget 2023 was a missed opportunity, CHF Canada looks forward to working with the government of Ontario to find lasting solutions to our housing crisis that benefit everyone.