Resilient Communities – Federal Budget 2022

The City of Brampton is taking a comprehensive approach to improving housing affordability. Brampton’s new housing strategy “Housing Brampton”, endorsed
in May 2021, is an ambitious, collaborative approach to address the complex housing challenges faced by the city.

• Housing Brampton’s overarching principles to guide housing development in Brampton include reducing barriers to supply of housing, making full use of regulatory tools, incorporating equity, collaborating with the non-profit sector, advocating for the right housing, and demonstrating innovation.
• The federal government has launched the National Housing Strategy and committed over $70 billion in funding. Most recently, it has announced a $4B Housing Accelerator Fund aimed at helping municipalities remove barriers to building housing more quickly.
• The City seeks federal supports, including direct financial commitments, to ensure sustenance of local and regional efforts in improving housing affordability and choice.

The 2021 Census data indicates Brampton retains its place as Canada’s 9th largest city based on total population. With a net increase of over 60,000 people since the 2016 census, Brampton is the fastest growing community of Canada’s largest 25 cities. There were a total of 189,086 private dwellings in 2021, up 9 per cent
or 15,658 dwellings from the 2016 Census.

Between 2021 and 2051, Brampton’s population is forecast to increase by another 317,000 residents, making the city home to a million residents. Our residents  have identified the challenge of the growing cost of life in the city. One of the main drivers is the increased cost of housing across Brampton.

Brampton is committed to smart intensification to meet the forecasted demand and improve housing affordability.

The federal government has a key role to play in supporting housing innovation, including funding for pilot projects to create innovative pathways for homeownership, for racialized, Indigenous, and marginalized people and first-generation homeowners.

• The City has committed $8M towards a new capital project to deliver grants for innovative housing pilot projects identified in Housing Brampton.
• Funds will be granted to non-profits to help deliver new options in affordable housing including Single Room Occupancy housing, flexible design ownership housing for low and moderate income groups, affordable housing for independent seniors and multigenerational households with culture-appropriate project design, and adaptive reuse of heritage structures for housing.
• The City will work with project proponents to identify opportunities and barriers and review the type of incentive required for each. Opportunities to divert contribution into this fund will be explored, including possible matching funds from senior levels of government.
• The federal government can contribute with upfront project development funding to help get more projects off the ground while ensuring long-term affordability.
• Through the Housing Accelerator Fund the federal government can contribute to the City’s $8M investment in the Housing Catalyst Capital Project to support the non-profit sector in Brampton.

Canada’s stable immigration system, which offers an easy pathway to employment and permanent residency after graduation, together with successful recruiting strategies by public and private colleges and universities, have made the Region of Peel, and in particular Brampton, very attractive for international students and postgraduate work permit holders.

The federal government’s immigration policy has a major impact on population growth and many tax policies. Municipalities like Brampton are responsible for translating the impacts of federal immigration policy into local plans and capital projects to sustain the growth.

• The net population growth in Brampton is predominantly international, including international students.
• A vast number of legal and illegal second units and rooming houses are capturing the influx of student population in Brampton, with considerable impacts on safety as well as impacts on the City’s infrastructure planning.
• The City calls on all levels of government to work with universities and colleges to address and create more student housing to meet the current and forecasted demand.

There is an opportunity for the federal government to work with the province to plan for a new task force with the City of Brampton, educational institutions, Ministry of Colleges and Universities and Ministry of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to develop solutions, including financial supports, for safe and affordable housing for international students and post-graduate work permit holders.

• Non-profits, co-operative and purpose-built rental developers face the greatest challenges with land costs.
• Access to public land (either surplus, vacant or underutilized) can support innovative solutions to housing for vulnerable groups, including veterans and indigenous populations.

There is an opportunity for the federal government, in collaboration with the province, to budget for and donate or lease crown land to lower-tier municipalities including the City of Brampton, and affordable housing developers in Brampton, to build affordable and/or ‘missing middle’ housing solutions.