The federal government will provide more than one billion dollars over nine years to help tackle the Toronto Community Housing Corporation’s ballooning capital repairs backlog.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the announcement alongside Toronto Mayor John Tory outside a TCHC building on Adanac Drive in Scarborough on Friday afternoon.
Trudeau called the investment the largest federal housing investment with a municipal partner in the country’s history.
Speaking to reporters, Tory said the funding will help fix 58,000 housing units at 1,500 buildings across Toronto.
"This money has been a long time coming, a very long time. These housing units were downloaded on to the city’s books many years ago and as far back as 2007, the city council recognized the need to repair the buildings, which were by then 35 or 40 years old. But the city couldn’t do it alone," Tory said.
"We started at that time to ask for the other governments to help. During the time between now and then, the backlog of repairs got up as high as $2.6 billion dollars... until today, we did not have a partner in making those repairs."
Tory said this year alone, the city budgeted $313-million to address TCHC repairs.
Released in January, the 2019 TCHC budget pegged the unfunded capital repairs backlog at $2.1 billion.
The mayor has previously called on the other levels of government to each provide one third of the cash needed to fix the units in its aging housing stock.
"I will be continuing to talk to the provincial government about ways in which they can help us," he added.
The mayor said at 140 Adanac Drive, where Friday’s announcement was made, $5.7-million will be allocated for repairs and residents will begin to see changes as soon as this fall.
The funding will go toward fixing plumbing and electrical systems, installing new windows, and making common areas and entrances accessible.
"I think about the people who are living in these buildings across the city… this is going to make their housing better. This is going to make their lives better," Tory said.
In a statement released Friday, Coun. Ana Bailao, the city’s housing czar, applauded Ottawa’s investment in Canada's largest social housing provider.
“Today is a great day for the tenants of Toronto Community Housing and the people of Toronto. I would like to thank Prime Minster Justin Trudeau, Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, Parliamentary Secretary Adam Vaughan, CMHC and the Government of Canada for stepping up and committing this landmark funding that will ensure a better quality of life for the 110,000 people that call Toronto Community Housing home,” she wrote.
“After decades of underfunding and the proposed sell off TCH's single-family homes in 2011, we took action to change the way things are done.”
The federal funding comes from the CMHC’s $13.2 billion National Housing Co-Investment Fund. The government says it will provide $810 million in loans and $530 million in contributions.
