A tent on the sidewalk in Toronto in February. A new study says a significant increase in the region's funding for public housing could reduce homelessness and ease strain on the health care and judicial systems.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Public housing funding in the Toronto region needs to more than double over the next 25 years in order to reduce homelessness and ease the strain on the health care and judicial systems, according to a new study.
The Toronto region has been under pressure to provide more subsidized housing as the cost of living escalates in the country’s second-most expensive real estate market, making it increasingly harder for residents to make ends meet.
Public housing providers for the city of Toronto and the nearby areas of Peel, Halton, York, Durham and Hamilton have a combined 80,000 subsidized units that house about 160,000 residents.
Increased funding would house more of the region’s residents, improve their lives and alleviate the pressure on the public system, according to the study conducted by Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis (CANCEA), a socioeconomic analytics and advisory firm.
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The study was commissioned by the region’s five community housing providers, which together account for 40 per cent of Ontario’s public housing.
“We have to think about public housing the same way we think about other kinds of public infrastructure,” said Sean Baird, chief executive of Toronto Community Housing, the country’s largest public housing provider.
The study shows that the greatest societal benefits occur if government funding is bolstered to $36.4-billion over 25 years and is used to build new public housing as well as to repair existing stock, in which thousands of units are in poor condition.
Under this scenario, there would be 4,700 fewer homeless people than if funding remained the same.
It would also result in 524,133 fewer hospitalizations, 156,476 fewer visits to the emergency room, as well as 44,226 fewer interactions with law enforcement and the justice system, the study predicted.
Overall, fewer hospitalizations and less use of the judicial system work out to $1.8-billion in savings over 25 years, the study said. The reduction in homelessness results in savings of $2.4-billion in social services such as emergency shelters and outreach programs.
“These are really about freeing up resources to be directed elsewhere,” said David Stiff, a principal with CANCEA and one of the study’s authors. “If an emergency department visit time is freed up due to providing housing, it will be used by another patient receiving care sooner.”
A doubling in funding means that the public housing system would house an estimated 239,500 residents by 2050, compared with 199,277 if funding remains the same.
The study aims to show that public housing investment has a broader impact than simply providing subsidized housing. It says the investment improves people’s lives, contributes to economic growth, creates jobs and lessens the strain on the public system.
The study measures how the well-being of residents and their community improves if people have access to safe, stable and affordable housing.
Using a measurement it calls social value, the study said that amounts to $48.3-billion over 25 years if funding is increased in the Toronto region. If funding stays the same, the social value would be $4.4-billion.
The study analyzes what would occur if funding was only used to repair and maintain existing public housing units, also known as renewals, or if funding was only used to build new units without any renewals.
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Although these two scenarios would likely never occur in isolation, the study shows that if the funding was only dedicated to building new homes, there would not be as great a reduction in hospitalizations, emergency room visits and interactions with the judicial system.
“Lots of people like to announce new construction and forget about all the renewals,” said Mr. Stiff.
The federal government has said building new homes is one of its priorities and has said it wants to “turbocharge” new home construction to help make housing more affordable.
Much of the industry’s focus is on building homes that will sell or rent at market prices, as opposed to building and repairing non-market units or subsidized housing.
There are more than 100,000 people on the wait-list for subsidized housing in the city of Toronto and more than 12,000 people experiencing homelessness, according to Mr. Baird.
“The system just simply hasn’t been keeping up with the demand that’s out there,” he said.