NDP housing plan to give Scarborough families direct rent support, help with mortgage costs

SCARBOROUGH — The NDP’s new housing plan will help families in Scarborough keep up with monthly mortgage payments and rent. Homes You Can Afford, a plan released this week by NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, provides cash for down payments to first-time home buyers, and makes it easier for home owners to create affordable rentals in unused spaces to generate mortgage-helper income. For renters, the NDP plan will help thousands of families with the rent, as well as better protections against rent hikes and wrongful evictions.

Under the NDP plan, 311,000 households will get help paying their rent with direct financial support, and first-time home buyers will get help making a down payment through a shared equity loan. The province would contribute as much as 10 per cent of the price of the home as a down payment, which would only be repayable if and when the home owners decided to move or sell their home. Official Opposition NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who was in Scarborough Thursday virtually with NDP MPP Doly Begum (Scarborough Southwest), said this will make a big difference for local families.

“No one should have to squeeze their growing or multi-generational family into a home that is cramped or crumbling because of skyrocketing housing prices, but that is a reality for a lot of people in Scarborough,” said Horwath. “Some families would like to buy a home in the community they love, but no matter how hard they work and save, they are priced out. Other families find themselves living in precarious situations, living in fear of their landlord raising the rent or throwing them out so they can charge the next tenant even more.”

The average rent for a two-bedroom unit in Toronto increased by more than 20 per cent between 2015 and 2019, according to Statistics Canada data. And Rentals.ca’s October 2020 Rent Rankings shows two-bedroom units are currently going for an average of $2,569 in Toronto.

“The housing crisis keeps getting worse and worse, and the Liberal and Conservative governments have done nothing to help,” said Horwath. “Their rules have been helping rich developers and investors buy up properties and get even richer, and letting bad apple landlords raise rents and toss tenants out so they can make more money from the next tenant.”

The NDP would better protect tenants by applying rent control to all units, and by stopping landlords from kicking out tenants so they can raise the rent (called vacancy decontrol). Homes You Can Afford would also make it easier for people to create affordable rentals in unused spaces in their homes, so they can earn some money to put towards paying down their mortgage.

“The NDP believes families should be able to find affordable homes that can be cherished by their parents, grandparents, and children,” said Horwath. “We’re going to help Ontarians do just that by making it easier to buy a home, and by making renting more affordable and more secure.”

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Mohammad Yunus Miah
“During the pandemic, I got COVID, got laid off and my family almost lost our apartment. Our one-bedroom apartment is already too small for my three kids who are doing school online from home. We need a bigger place to live, but we’re having a hard time finding a home we can afford.”

Background

• An Ontario NDP government will create a new Residents’ Rights Act to make it easier for homeowners to convert an unused garage, basement or floor of their home into an affordable rental home.
• Under the NDP’s Homes in Ontario Program (HOP), first-time home buyers with household incomes under $200,000 would be able to access home equity loans of up to 10 per cent to help with their down payment. Home owners would then have the flexibility to buy back the government’s share or repay the loan only if and when they move and sell their home.
• The NDP will create a revenue-neutral fund to finance repayable loans as a part of the HOP. That fund will be self-sustaining. Gains in the fund over time will be used to maintain the fund.
• Implementing the entire Homes You Can Afford plan will take a capital investment of $90 million to extend the life of 260,000 affordable homes and an average annual investment of $340 million for 10 years to build 69,000 new affordable homes.
• The total additional annual projected revenue is $300 million, all from speculation, non-resident vacancy, taxes on pre-construction condo flipping and licensing short-term rentals — not a dime will come from everyday families who rent or buy in Ontario.
• An NDP government would fund an operating investment of $300 million. That includes $240 million to fund rent subsidies for 311,000 households, $10 million for a co-op seed fund and $50 million to deliver 30,000 supportive housing spaces.