The Hook

The federal government will spend more money over the next few years helping Canadians renovate bathrooms than it will building new social housing units.

A new tax credit for home renovation unveiled in yesterday’s budget could cost the federal government $2.5 billion in the next fiscal year, while total spending over the next two years for social housing totals just over $2 billion.

The full unveiling of the budget followed a series of well-orchestrated leaks by the Conservative government. Since late last week, the government has spilled the beans on $13 billion worth of stimulus spending plans, including more than $2 billion in additional funding for social housing.

The budget for social housing includes:

• A one-time federal investment of $1 billion over two years for renovations and energy retrofits for up to 200,000 social housing units on a 50-50 cost shared basis with the provinces

• $400 million over two years for housing for low-income seniors

• $75 million over two years for housing for people with disabilities

• $400 million over two years to new and existing housing projects on First Nations reserves

• An additional $200 million over two years for housing in the North

Victoria NDP MP Denise Savoie called the measures “absolutely inadequate.”

“It doesn’t matter if you get all these tax benefits to renovate your house if you’re unemployed,” she told The Tyee.

Savoie added setting funds aside for social housing is one thing, but delivering those funds is quite another.

“These are guys who have had a deathbed conversion on these investments,” she said. “I don’t trust Harper to deliver.”

Although the $2 billion figure comes close to the $2.5 billion most housing advocates say would be a good target to address Canada’s social housing needs, Michael Shapcott of Toronto’s Wellesley Institute told The Tyee the numbers may be deceiving.

For example, Shapcott said the billion-dollar fund for renovations and retrofits may not help as many Canadians as it could. Only five percent of Canadians live in the kind of social housing that would likely get the funding; the rest rent or own their homes and would not qualify, he said.

“What they’re saying is the five percent of Canadians who live in social housing will get a billion dollars and the 95 per cent of Canadians who don’t live in social housing — a number of whom also live in substandard units that are over-crowded, unfit for habitation — will simply be ignored,” he said.

That said, Shapcott acknowledged the “huge” repair backlog and said the money for social housing will be well spent.

“People living in social housing are living in some of the crappiest housing in the country and they desperately need the money. It’s not like they’re pissing away the money on something that isn’t needed,” he told The Tyee.

Shapcott also called for a national housing strategy and investments in social housing projects geared to low- and moderate-income Canadians.

“We have to build new supply and, as far as we can see, there’s not a penny allocated for new supply,” he said.

In the last fiscal year, federal spending on housing on a per capita basis was the lowest it’s been in more than two decades.

For home owners, yesterday’s budget includes:

• A new Home Renovation Tax Credit that will provide up to $1,350 in tax relief, reduce the cost of renovations for an estimated 4.6 million Canadian families, and provide needed stimulus for the economy

• Additional funding of $300 million over two years to the ecoENERGY Retrofit program to support an estimated 200,000 additional home retrofits

• First-time buyers with additional access to their RRSP savings to purchase or build a home by increasing the Home Buyers’ Plan withdrawal limit to $25,000 from $20,000

• First-time buyers up to $750 in tax relief to help with the purchase of a first home

Matthew Pearson is reporting on the federal budget from Ottawa for The Tyee.