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Recent news from the Ontario Region
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Queen’s Park announces capital repair funding
MAR 17, 2008 Premier McGuinty has announced the first planks in his promised strategy to reduce poverty in Ontario. The package of initiatives announced on March 17 includes three to deal with the capital repair deficit in social housing across this province:
- $100 million to repair existing social housing. The funding will be distributed to service managers based on the number of units that each administers and is expected to help repair some 4,000 units.
- Up to $500 million in loans from the Ontario Strategic Infrastructure Financing Facility for capital repairs with a focus on improving energy efficiency in social housing. These loans could assist up to 20,000 units.
- $1 million to the Social Housing Services Corporation to set up a Social Housing Asset Management Centre.
“The Ontario government deserves a lot of credit for taking these important first steps to deal with the critical shortfall in funding for capital repairs in co-ops and other non-profit housing in Ontario,” says Dale Reagan, Managing Director of CHF Canada’s Ontario Region. “For too long the capital funding deficit has been the elephant in the room that everyone acknowledges but governments don’t want to talk about because the problem is too big.”
For the past year CHF Canada has worked with the Social Housing Services Corporation, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing and other housing partners on an Asset Management Group (AMG) set up to provide co-ops and non-profits with more resources to maintain their properties. “This new funding will make a huge difference,” says Reagan. “We should be able to create a true centre of excellence in the management of social housing assets and provide the tools and help that groups need to keep their housing in good shape for the long term.”
Read the Province’s news release and backgrounder.
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