Waterloo region politicians pleased to see housing at forefront of federal budget

Regional Chair Karen Redman says she's pleased to see housing  is a main focus of the new federal budget.

The budget, tabled on Thursday, includes ways to address sky-high housing costs that included a temporary ban on foreign buyers, a crackdown on speculators, a pledge to double the pace of new home construction and a new tax-sheltered way for Canadians to save to buy a home.

"It is encouraging to see the federal government's prioritization of housing," Redman said in a release on Friday.

She added the region is "particularly pleased" by the continuation of the Rapid Housing Initiative and Reaching Home program. 

Local municipalities have previously benefited from the Rapid Housing Initiative, and funding from the federal program has helped build units with the KW Urban Native Wigwam in Cambridge and OneRoof Youth Services in Kitchener.

Redman said the region will also watch for details about other programs announced in the budget, but that lacked specific details.

"We remain interested in the details of the Housing Accelerator Fund."

Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic also said he was pleased to see the federal government is "clearly focusing on affordable housing, housing supply and skyrocketing prices."

"The City of Kitchener stands ready to continue working with our federal, provincial and regional government partners, as well as the private and not-for-profit sectors, in ending homelessness, increasing housing supply, and making housing more affordable," he said in a release.

Housing a provincial, municipal issue: expert

Brian Doucet is Canada Research Chair in Urban Change and Social Inclusion as well as an associate professor in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo.

He said there's little the federal government can do to create housing supply.

"There's some incentives that they can provide but this is largely a provincial and municipal responsibility."

Doucet added it's unclear how the federal government will encourage new housing supply. 

"There's some mention in the budget around tying that into transit funding. So linking transit funding to being able to rapidly build new housing," he said.

"That's got some positives to it. But increasingly, we have to shift this conversation away from just purely building supply towards thinking about what kind of supply we're building and for whom. And no level of government has really shifted that conversation."

He said housing is both a shelter and a human right, while also being a speculative commodity where people can make money. 

He said measures, like a proposed tax on flipping properties or selling properties within 12 months so any profit from that would be taxed as business income, would be a good move.

He noted between 1949 and 1993, the federal government had a big role in building new social housing. But the federal government stopped doing that in 1993 and then provinces followed suit.

"What would be great to see is the federal government providing a stable, steady source of funds that provinces and cities can use to directly build new social housing, new non-market housing, new genuinely affordable housing," Doucet said.

LISTEN | University of Waterloo's Brian Doucet discusses the federal budget's housing points.