Federal Government Launches Build Canada Homes

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• Yesterday, AMO’s President and Executive Director were invited to Ottawa for the launch of Build Canada Homes. Ontario municipalities are ready to work with the province and federal government to transform the housing landscape and increase affordable, supportive and transitional housing in Ontario. 

Federal Government Launch of Build Canada Homes 

AMO welcomes the Government of Canada’s announcement launching Build Canada Homes, a new Special Operating Agency within Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada (HICC). AMO’s President Robin Jones and Executive Director Lindsay Jones attended the announcement with Prime Minister Carney and Minister Robertson (Housing and Infrastructure). 

Responsive to AMO’s market sounding guide submission, Build Canada Homes (BCH) will focus primarily on non-market housing, supporting a mix of income needs as part of a national effort to double housing construction, restore affordability, and reduce homelessness. BCH aligns with AMO’s recommendations about Ontario’s municipal priorities: 

• The agency will work with municipalities, provinces, territories and Indigenous Communities to fight homelessness by building supportive and transitional housing with an investment of $1 billion and will seek to pair these federal investments with employment and health care supports in provinces and territories.
   
• A new acquisition program to protect existing affordable rental housing, the $1.5 billion Canada Rental Protection Fund, will help the community housing sector in acquiring at-risk apartment buildings to ensure their affordability over the long term. 
   
• BCH will also work with the private sector to deploy modern methods of construction to create a new Canadian housing industry using Canadian materials. Prioritization initially will be placed on creating 4000 factory-built units in six select Canadian cities, including Toronto and Ottawa, with additional capacity of up to 45,000 units across the portfolio. 

BCH will be headed by Ana Bailão as the agency’s Chief Executive Officer. As a former Toronto City Councillor and chair of Toronto Community Housing, Ana will bring her knowledge of housing in Ontario to the leadership position.  

AMO will work with both the federal and provincial governments to ensure the conditions for BCH’s success in Ontario given our unique municipal responsibility for community housing and homelessness prevention services. This will include working with the Ontario government to match federal capital dollars with provincial operating funding for the necessary wrap around supports for supportive housing. AMO looks forward to working with the federal government on the potential expansion of the initiative to create new factory-built units on federal lands in more Ontario communities – large urban, small urban, rural, northern and southern.  

The federal government will announce additional measures in Budget 2025 to lower costs for builders and to catalyze private capital in homebuilding. AMO asks the federal government to avoid imposing new development charge (DC) exemptions or discounts. DCs have been a key funding source for municipal capital investments for decades. Reductions will be counterproductive unless DCs are fully replaced with another equally predictable and stable revenue source.