Ontario needs to build about 10,000 new rental units annually to meet the demand of the growing population. We've seen an average of about 3,200 rental completions annually over the last 20 years, much less than half of what we need. The private market has produced plenty of new ownership housing, but it has not delivered a significant number of new purpose-built rental properties, with even fewer affordable rental units.
The housing developed under the cost-shared Ontario-Canada funding program provides affordable rental units, with rents that are on average at or below 80% of CMHC market rents than the local community, but these below-market rents remain unaffordable to people who are homeless or who are on the social housing waiting list. In addition, private for-profit landlords own 35% of the rental housing built in Ontario with funding from these programs. It is shocking to us that projects approved under the rental housing component of the investment in affordable housing program are only required to be affordable for a minimum period of 20 years. This means that over one third of the units built to date will not be permanent public infrastructure with affordable rents over the long term despite a significant investment of public dollars.
We need an affordable housing building program with adequate funding and firm annual targets. In addition, we strongly recommend that all new rental housing developed with public funds should be owned and managed solely by the non-profit sector and remain affordable over the long term, not just 20 years.