2024-25 Confirmed Funding Allocations for National Housing Strategy (NHS) Programs

Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing

Office of the Minister 
777 Bay Street, 17th Floor 
Toronto ON M7A 2J3 
Tel.: 416 585-7000

234-2024-2838

June 17, 2024

Mr. Bruce Killah
Board Chair, Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB
210 Mead Boulevard
Espanola, ON P5E 1R9

Dear Bruce Killah:

Re: 2024-25 Confirmed Funding Allocations for National Housing Strategy (NHS) Programs

Following the federal government’s recent approval of Ontario’s revised National Housing Strategy (NHS) Action Plan, I am pleased to confirm your 2024-25 NHS funding allocations.

I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge and thank you for your support in this regard. Your efforts in providing timely, project-related information were critical in achieving this outcome and reinforced our position with the federal government that collaboration is imperative to solving the housing crisis.

Your funding allocations for 2024-25 for the Ontario Priorities Housing Initiative (OPHI) and the Canada-Ontario Community Housing Initiative (COCHI) are attached to this letter as Appendix “A”. The funding allocations for OPHI and COCHI remain unchanged from the planning allocations communicated to you in 2023-24. The Transfer Payment Agreements and Program Guidelines for the programs included in Appendix “A” are current and continue to apply.

Details on Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit (COHB) allocations to enroll new participants in the program for 2024-25 will be provided as soon as possible. At this time, allocations for new participants have not been confirmed.

For more information on these NHS programs, please see Appendix “B”.

As you are aware, through its Action Plan, Ontario reconfirmed its commitment to achieving its existing NHS targets, including the target to expand the number of rent-assisted units by 19,660 by March 31, 2028.
 
Using data provided by service managers and partner ministries, we were able to confidently identify 8,644 units (44% of the target) by March 31, 2025. We continue to work with the federal government on counting additional units that have been created across the province so this number should increase and while this represents significant progress, but much remains to be done.

To ensure we achieve the final target by 2028 while avoiding the risk of a future disruption to programming and related financial impacts, Ontario’s Action Plan also made commitments to a number of additional measures including: establishing annual provincial supply targets, directing NHS funding towards the achievement of these targets; and implementing robust data collection and reporting mechanisms to ensure we are capturing all units towards the target.

In the coming weeks and months, we will continue to work with the federal government as well as our service managers to validate existing eligible units that have not yet been counted towards the target. I would also encourage you to prioritize new supply projects and communicate any newly forecasted units through your forthcoming Investment Plans.

To ensure our planning accounts for updated progress while taking local priorities into consideration, we will also be coordinating sessions with service managers in the near future.

Finally, I also want to let you know that a new condition will be implemented for OPHI and COCHI. The Ontario Builds Signage requirements will need to be met for all OPHI and COCHI capital projects that were not completed before December 31, 2023. Further details on these requirements will be provided in the near future by ministry staff.

Again, we sincerely appreciate your efforts to assist vulnerable residents and to keep people safe. I look forward to continuing our work together.

Sincerely,
 
The Honourable Paul Calandra
Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing

c. Donna Stewart, Chief Administrative Officer
    Lori Clark, Director Integrated Social Services
   Cindy Couillard, Team Lead, Municipal Services Office (Northeast)

Appendix “A” 
Funding Allocations – Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB