N.S. funded 954 new affordable rental units in last 5 years. Experts say this is far from enough

Michael Kabalen walks through a construction site that will soon be a neighbourhood of affordable rental units, tucked away on a quiet street in Dartmouth, N.S.

The rows of townhouses on True North Crescent are part of a 32-unit development, built with funding from the provincial and federal governments.

Kabalen, the head of the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia (AHANS), said the units his organization is building are desperately needed in a province that is experiencing skyrocketing rents and low vacancy rates.

Yet housing developments like this aren't being approved fast enough, he said.

"This project ... took months of planning, months of back and forth with all the different levels of government," Kabalen said. "I don't think governments are moving quickly enough to have a meaningful impact on the affordable housing crisis."

Hard data on affordable housing being built in Nova Scotia every year isn't publicly available.

Data the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing provided to CBC shows the province has helped fund954 affordable rental units in the past five years.The projects are at varying stages, with some completed, some under construction, and some in planning stages.

Most of these new affordable units are part of larger developments that include market price units as well, built by private developers or by non-profit organizations like AHANS.

At the current pace, it would be impossible to meet the target of 33,000 affordable homes Nova Scotia is expected to need over the next decade.

Is this enough?

In the last five years, the funding through this program has amounted to $54,934,988.

While Housing Department officials say the annual budget for affordable housing hovered around $2 million for many years, and is now around $18 million, Kabalen said the effects have been minimal.

"We're seeing the most investment and the most activity around the affordable housing sector in a generation or in a couple of generations," he said. "I think the government can be proud that it's doing more than previous governments have, but it doesn't take much to do more than nothing."

Funding for affordable housing can come from municipal, provincial and federal governments, but the province plays a key role.

Currently, provincial funding comes from Nova Scotia's new Affordable Housing Development Program, and similar previous programs have been consolidated into it.

The Housing Department also funds programs that allow non-profits to build equity, preserve existing affordable housing, and plan developments. It also recently donated the land for three affordable housing developments.

The Affordable Housing Development Program requires applicants, whether they are private sector or non-profit developers, to meet a minimum definition of affordability, such as 80 per cent of median market rents.

The program eligibility states the amount of funding a project receives is influenced by various factors, including the depth of affordability being offered.

The median market rent for atwo-bedroom apartment is $1,425 per month in Halifax and$888 in Cape Breton Regional Municipality, according to the latest statistics from the CMHC.

Catherine Leviten-Reid, an associate professor in the community economic development program at Cape Breton University, is one of the leaders of a 2021 study that found Nova Scotia needs to build or acquire 33,490 units of affordable, non-market housing in the next 10 years.

"We have a tremendous need for affordable housing across the province right now, it's really overwhelming," Leviten-Reid said in a recent interview.

Then there's the general demand for housing of all types, and the government is trying to get a grip on that need.

Deputy minister of Housing Paul LaFleche told CBC News the province has a shortage "we've never seen before."

"We did not expect this level of success with immigration and we did not expect this level of success in our economy and we did not expect COVID," he said. "So all of those things arrived at the same time and conspired to give us the situation we're in today."

Much more housing of all types needed

At a public accounts committee meeting earlier this month, LaFleche spoke about the Housing Department's targets for all new residential construction in the province.

"Right now our estimate, which we haven't released, is that we have in the order of 70 odd thousand units needed in the next five years to support the population in Nova Scotia," LaFleche told the committee. "That's going to have to be all sorts of different units, from affordable to mid-level to higher end."

LaFleche later said he couldn't elaborate on this number.

"The minister will have a lot to say about it in a few weeks," he said. "He's going to release at some point the housing strategy and release that report."

Demand far exceeds new construction

According to CMHC data, in the last five years, metropolitan areas of the province have seen the completion of 19,331 housing units, including single family, semi-detached, row homes and apartment units of all types.

"To meet that [higher] number ... is frankly, impossible without a real shift in either what we're building and how we're building it," Kabalen said. "We're also competing for the same trades and the same resources where there's massive spending on health-care infrastructure, where there's massive spending on school infrastructure."

"An arm swinging a hammer is an arm swinging a hammer, and we only have so many. And that's really the biggest struggle in responding to the housing crisis."

Is N.S. doing enough to meet demand for affordable housing?

1 year ago

Duration 3:13

As a way to counter Nova Scotia's housing crisis, the province has been funding the construction of more low-cost rentals. But the total number hasn't been publicly available until now. The CBC's Nicola Seguin explains.

Leviten-Reid said even as an affordable housing researcher, she doesn't know exactly how many affordable units have been built in the province through provincial or federal funding.

"I do think that speaks to the lack of a plan in the province for not only reducing, but eliminating homelessness and core housing need," she said.

She said a plan should include concrete targets of how many affordable builds are needed, for which types of households, at what cost, and a timeline to get there. It would also include regular progress reports to the public.