Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow speaks at the 2023 City of Toronto United Way employee campaign kick-off in Nathan Phillips Square.
Toronto officials have revealed a first look at the city’s new, accelerated plans to build affordable housing — but that plan will require billions of dollars in federal and provincial funding to make it happen.Mayor Olivia Chow says Toronto is 'leading a generational shift' in how the city provides housing and what type of housing is being built, but a new report issued Tuesday shows billions in federal and provincial funding and grants is needed to make that plan happen.
But increasing that supply would be costly. The city has set a target of 65,000 new rent-controlled homes, and funding has been secured for 4,455 of those.The report says the cost to deliver the remaining 60,545 homes is between $28.6 billion and $31.5 billion — leaving an estimated $3.7 billion and $5.3 billion in funding required from both the provincial and federal governments.
The city also notes those funding estimates are "high-level and sensitive to market conditions including interest rate fluctuations and construction costs" — costs that have ballooned for construction projects across the country in recent years, after pandemic-related supply chain issues.from both the federal and provincial governments this year, after asylum seekers were forced to sleep on the streets due to an overburdened shelter system.