Ontario municipalities bearing brunt of subsidized housing costs

The Financial Accountability Office of Ontario is painting a picture of the subsidized housing needs in the province.

It estimates that over one million households needed some form of support last year.

Only about 30 percent received it, and of those, almost 86,000 households continued to face unaffordable housing costs.

The province is planning to increase spending by 3 per cent next year, increasing from $2.0 billion in 2024-25 to $2.2 billion in 2027-28.

But the FAO says that with inflation, the total amount will be similar to what was spent 20 years ago.

The report also finds that municipalities are bearing much of the cost of subsidizing housing.

The FAO says municipalities, on average, contributed 56.8% of total funding between 2004 and 2025.

The provincial government provided 13.3% of funding, while the federal government’s share was 29.9% during the same period.

The FAO adds that the municipal share increased between 2004 and 2021 as federal and provincial programs expired.

It started to decline with the implementation of a new National Housing Strategy that came into effect in the 2021-22 fiscal year.

The FAO also projects that the number of Ontario households requiring some form of subsidized housing support will increase 8.3 per cent by 2028.