→ Comparison to Recommendation 3

3. Invest directly in affordable housing programs

The Greens’ housing platform states “The federal government has to get back in the business of social housing. The Green Party supports greater and sustained federal funding for social and co-operative housing. We have to do better to deliver a system that allows Canadians of all situations to access decent housing at a manageable cost. To really make progress on eliminating homelessness, however, requires much more investment in affordable housing. This means maintaining and substantially increasing the federal operating spending for social housing from its base of $1.6 billion today.”

The Green Party supports increasing subsidies for social housing and will not continue the planned eliminated of subsidies for social and co-op housing. The Green Party told COH that their, “housing target is 20,000 new and 8,000 rehabilitated affordable units per year for the next ten years. Over the next five years, Green spending on affordable housing will begin at $400 million per year and increase to $1.397 billion.” In the response to ACTO, the Green Party said they would build 20,000 new and 10,000 rehabilitated properties per year, a slight increase. These numbers are significantly above the recommended numbers from SOHC: 2014 and would go far to address the homelessness crisis.

As outlined in SOHC: 2014 the tax system currently favours building units for home ownership rather than rental housing.  The Green Party wants to “restore the favourable treatment once in place for purpose-built rental housing.”

The Green Party also proposes a Seniors’ Housing Strategy and a Home Energy Retrofit. The Seniors’ Housing Strategy comes from CARP (a seniors advocacy group) and is aimed at helping seniors stay in their own home and/or develop cooperative housing models. “[The] Greens join CARP in envisioning small groups of seniors living together in a home they jointly own, with the support of a housekeeper. Seniors with similar lifestyles should be matched together, so they can share the costs of homemaking, medicine, and staffing support.”

The Home Energy Retrofit program might align with the existing IAH. While the focus is on energy retrofits, the Greens mention targeting social housing improvements as one of the first areas of priority.