Speech to the Canadian Housing Renewal Association Congress

Speaking Notes for Romy Bowers, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

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Thanks, Margaret, for that introduction, and thanks to CHRA for inviting me here today.

I’m pleased to be joining you from Toronto, the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples. The city is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

I am grateful to be here on this land. I hope you’ll all take a moment to consider the land you’re on — wherever that is — and the benefits it has brought you.

I’m also grateful to have been invited to help open this year’s Congress. Our long-standing partnership with CHRA is very important to us.

This relationship will be as important as ever in the coming months and years as we put into action the very collaborative measures laid out in the new federal budget.

The Budget includes approaching the affordability crisis from multiple angles, reflecting the complexity of the housing system.

Budget 2022 includes investments to boost supply, support for aspiring homeowners and for those most in need, new protections for buyers and renters, significant housing support for Indigenous people everywhere in the country, and investments in greener buildings and homes.

I was encouraged to see a real focus on increasing supply, especially affordable housing supply for the most vulnerable in the country.

I’ll touch on a few highlights that will be of interest to you here today — things Minister Hussen alluded to already. I’ll talk about what they mean for you and the people you’re devoted to serving, and I’ll talk about how CMHC is working to help make it all happen.

One Budget 2022 commitment I’m especially excited about is the Housing Accelerator Fund.

The $4 billion Fund would be flexible to the needs and realities of cities and communities, including smaller and rural ones.

CHRA and many of our other partners and stakeholders shared their views on this fund already, after we issued a call for ideas in the winter as well as during the National Housing Supply Summit hosted by Minister Hussen and FCM this past February. That guidance is being considered as we develop this fund, and we will share additional information as soon as we are able to.

We also issued a call for ideas at the same time for a potential rent-to-own program. We were pleased to see that the Budget includes $200 million in dedicated support for this program under the existing Affordable Housing Innovation Fund. This investment will provide opportunities for Canadians to get on the path to homeownership earlier, while also encouraging new housing supply that supports affordability for renters and prospective homeowners.

The Budget also includes an extension of the Rapid Housing Initiative, a program that has gotten great support and interest from the affordable-housing community.

I want to thank you here today especially. CHRA and its members quickly mobilized behind this program to make it a great success — a program that exceeded its targeted uptake at every stage.

Budget 2022 includes an additional $1.5 billion to extend the Rapid Housing Initiative over two years, with at least 25 per cent of funding going towards women-focused housing projects.

We will confirm details of how this funding will be delivered as soon as we can.

The Budget also includes modifications to some other programs you are already familiar with.

A reformed Rental Construction Financing Initiative will yield units that are more affordable and include further energy-efficiency requirements.

Budget 2022 proposes additional funding of $458.5 million to non-profit and co-operative housing providers as part of the low-income rental stream of the Canada Greener Homes Loan program. This would make existing affordable housing more energy efficient and climate-compatible. The new funds would allow providers serving those in greatest need to perform deeper energy retrofits on these homes and bring them up to a higher standard.

Taking lessons from the Rapid Housing Initiative, the National Housing Co-Investment Fund will be made both more flexible and easier to access, including with more generous contributions and faster approvals.

Another item in the Budget that people are getting excited about is co-op housing. A new Co-operative Housing Development Program will be co-designed with the non-profit sector, with $500 million in funding to be reallocated from the National Housing Co-Investment Fund. In addition, $1 billion in loans under the Rental Construction Financing initiative will be dedicated to support the repair and development of co-op housing projects.

Access to safe and affordable housing is critical to improving health and social outcomes and to ensuring a better future for Indigenous communities and children.

Budget 2022 also proposes $300 million for CMHC to co-develop and launch a Northern, Urban and Rural Indigenous Housing Strategy. This is in recognition that access to safe and affordable housing is critical to improving health and social outcomes and to ensuring a better future for Indigenous communities and children.

The CHRA Indigenous Caucus, the National Housing Council and other organizations such as the Aboriginal Housing Management Association are doing critical work in this area. I know that some of their members are here today. CMHC has relied on your help already, and we’ll certainly continue to do so as we co-develop this strategy.

This is in addition to $4 billion in new investments to our partners at Indigenous Services Canada and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada to accelerate work in closing Indigenous housing gaps.

And as you know, all NHS programs — including the Rapid Housing Initiative I mentioned a moment ago — prioritize projects that benefit Indigenous people.

The Budget also calls for a review of housing as an asset class in order to better understand the role of large corporate players in the market and the impact on Canadian renters and homeowners. The issue of financialization of housing is, again, an issue I know CHRA has been vocal about.

There are also provisions to care for our most vulnerable. The Budget proposes $475 million in 2022 – 23 to provide a one-time $500 payment to those facing housing affordability challenges.

It also proposes to provide $562.2 million over two years, beginning in 2024 – 25, for Infrastructure Canada to continue providing doubled annual funding for Reaching Home, the government’s homelessness strategy. This funding will provide longer term certainty for the organizations doing work across the country and ensure that our communities have the support they need.

Those are the highlights of the budget that most affect our work together.

Over the past year since I took on this role, I’ve had the chance to meet with many partners in the housing system — including many of you. The conversations we had led me to adjust CMHC’s Strategy, and that effort has set us up nicely to turn these budgetary plans into housing realities.

We’re refocusing on areas where we can have the biggest, most tangible impact on housing.

That means we’ll be focusing more on addressing core housing need, which is critical to the progressive realization of the right to adequate housing. We’ll be making sure the right public policy measures are in place and addressing supply gaps in affordable rental housing.

I was very pleased to see that the Budget has housing as one of its cornerstones, and I am confident that it will yield meaningful results.

That includes the biggest one: putting Canada on a path to double housing starts over the next decade. That’s a big goal, but I believe it’s an achievable one.

But these results are only achievable through collaboration. We need to work together — across the housing sector, across industries and across orders of government — to make this a reality.

We had some great cross-sector conversations at the recent Housing Supply Summit, and we’re looking forward to keeping that dialogue going.

The people at this congress today know better than most that creating new housing supply isn’t as simple as hammering nails and laying bricks. And it’s not as simple as drafting federal budgets, either.

It’s as simple — and as complicated — as harnessing the expertise and energy that is already being devoted to housing in Canada. We at CMHC believe that the pieces are in place to realize our aspiration: that by 2030, everyone in Canada has a home that they can afford and that meets their needs.

And furthermore, we believe everyone wants that to happen.

So the job at hand is to coordinate our efforts, to make sure they complement each other and bring us further toward that goal.

CMHC is privileged and proud to be in a position to do that. We can play the role of convener, bringing together the many players involved to facilitate and incentivize a housing system that meets everyone’s needs.

Everyone here today is a part of that. We have a great working relationship with CHRA already. We have appreciated the feedback you’ve provided over the years, including on some of the measures included in the new Budget.

You are working on the ground with families and individuals in housing need. You understand the needs in a way we just can’t. Your feedback and expertise are essential to getting our programming right.

I hope we can continue this strong relationship, and even deepen it.

Together, and with all of those other partners I mentioned, we can make a better, fairer housing system in Canada.