In a case of ‘be careful what you ask for,’ Canada’s National Housing Strategy (NHS) delivered on what advocates had been clamouring for – the re-engagement of the federal government in housing and longer-term predictable funding in order to build and stimulate an ongoing pipeline of housing delivery. As it turns out, the federal government may not be so good in the pipeline business!
It has been over three years since Minister Jean-Yves Duclos was formally mandated to develop and implement a NHS and 14 months since the release of the Strategy. He, along with CMHC President Evan Siddall have delivered many speeches, news releases and headlines, heralding what they assert to be Canada’s first ever national strategy and largest ever financial commitment for affordable housing. Housing policy historians might quibble with those assertions, but the main point here is that to date, we have seen very little housing produced under the NHS.
Will 2019 finally become the year where we start to see real momentum and real outcomes of the much-hyped National Housing Strategy? See the attached thought piece in which Steve muses about the coming year.