Toronto – The City of Toronto released its 2023-2024 annual report outlining the significant progress made on the HousingTO 2020-2030 Action Plan (HousingTO Plan) and 2022-2026 Housing Action Plan. The report also highlights areas where progress has stalled, pointing to action the City is taking within its jurisdiction and financial means, and emphasizing the need for significant new investments from federal and provincial governments to complement the City’s efforts.
The report focuses on the five key outcomes:
- Creating new rental housing supply;
- Protecting and preserving existing rental housing supply;
- Supporting renters and improving housing stability;
- Responding to diverse housing needs; and
- Transforming housing policies.
2023 progress
The City and its partners have made significant progress in the delivery of the HousingTO Plan and the Housing Action Plan including:
- Exceeding the provincial housing supply target by 51 per cent, with 31,656 new housing starts including 1,562 new affordable rental homes.
- Securing 368 permanent affordable homes through the Multi-Unit Residential Acquisition Program (MURA) program, which began in 2022.
- Preventing evictions for more than 2,200 low-income households needing support for rent arrears or rental deposits through the Toronto Rent Bank and Eviction Prevention in Community (EPIC) programs.
Despite the progress made, Toronto continues to face a deepening housing crisis that is affecting residents at all income levels with even greater impacts to those experiencing homelessness and low-income, Indigenous, Black and other equity deserving groups.
Increased targets, new policies
In 2023, the City increased its 10-year HousingTO Plan targets to deliver 65,000 new rent-controlled homes, including 41,000 affordable rental, 6,500 rent-geared-to-income (RGI) and 17,500 rent-controlled homes. The City has approved more than 23,000 new rent-controlled, affordable rental and supportive homes towards this target. However, the rate of affordable housing starts and completions are not keeping pace with the rate of approvals.
In response, the City launched the Rental Housing Supply Program in 2024 which allocates capital funding and financial incentives to affordable and RGI rental housing on City-owned lands and lands owned by the community housing sector.
Additionally, the City has rolled out a Community Housing Modernization and Growth Strategy which aims to help the non-profit and co-operative housing sector maintain their homes and keep them affordable. This strategy is further enhanced by a $100 million investment in the MURA program over three years that was approved through the 2024 budget.
Looking ahead, the City is working on several priorities for 2024-2025 including developing policies to strengthen its homelessness response, improve housing stability for renters and prevent evictions, advance its public development delivery model and forge partnerships to create new affordable and supportive rental homes, as well as protect the existing supply of homes to remain affordable, safe and in a state of good repair.
Enhanced federal and provincial funding requirement
The progress report highlights the need for additional and significant funding from other orders of government to help deliver the City’s housing targets successfully. This includes approximately $7.6 to $8.1 billion in funding and $6.4 to $7 billion in low-cost financing from the federal government; and approximately $9.1 to $9.6 billion in funding and $6.4 to $7 billion in financing from the provincial government to achieve the HousingTO targets over the next six years.
Specifically, the City continues to request federal and provincial funding for the Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI), Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit (COHB) and MURA Program to create new affordable rental and supportive homes, maintain the existing affordable rental stock and give more people access to affordable housing.
The 2023-2024 annual report for the HousingTO Plan and the Housing Action Plan is available on the City’s webpage. The HousingTO Plan dashboard can be accessed here. Previous progress reports are available on the City’s HousingTO 2020-2030 Action Plan webpage.
“Affordable housing is a top priority for the City and key to solving many of the challenges facing Toronto. This report shows that we’ve broken ground, delivered homes and taken important actions over the past year to keep us focused on achieving our housing targets. It also shows that we need to do much more and need continued partnership with our provincial and federal governments to create more affordable homes.” – Mayor Olivia Chow