City gets $600K from province for exceeding housing target

Building more housing units than expected has earned the city $600K in provincial funding through the Building Faster Fund. 

A news release issued by the provincial government today states that in 2023, the city broke ground on a total of 213 new housing units, exceeding its target. 

“Our government is making historic investments in infrastructure to give municipalities the tools they need to ensure that every resident has an affordable place to call home, including our $1.2 billion Building Faster Fund and $1.8 billion in additional funding announced in our recent budget,” said Rob Flack, Associate Minister of Housing in the release. “Sault Ste. Marie and all other municipalities that have met or exceeded their housing targets should be proud of the work they have done to get shovels in the ground faster.”

“The housing crisis represents a foremost challenge for municipalities across the province and I’m grateful for this support from the Government of Ontario, which will help us continue to act ambitiously to grow the local housing stock,” said Matthew Shoemaker, Mayor of the City of Sault Ste. Marie. “The City is committed to leveraging every tool at our disposal and our efforts are already showing signs of success – we’re proud to be one of just 19 municipalities that exceeded our provincially assigned target for new homes starts in 2023.”

For more information, see the full release below: 

Today, Rob Flack, Associate Minister of Housing, announced Ontario will be providing Sault Ste. Marie with $600,000 in funding through the Building Faster Fund as the city exceeded its 2023 housing target, breaking ground on a total of 213 new housing units last year.

“Our government is making historic investments in infrastructure to give municipalities the tools they need to ensure that every resident has an affordable place to call home, including our $1.2 billion Building Faster Fund and $1.8 billion in additional funding announced in our recent budget,” said Rob Flack, Associate Minister of Housing. “Sault Ste. Marie and all other municipalities that have met or exceeded their housing targets should be proud of the work they have done to get shovels in the ground faster.”

Announced in August 2023, the Building Faster Fund is a three-year, $1.2 billion program that is designed to encourage municipalities to address the housing supply crisis. The fund rewards municipalities that make significant progress against their targets by providing funding for housing-enabling and community-enabling infrastructure. Funding is provided to municipalities that have reached at least 80 per cent of their provincially assigned housing target for the year with increased funding for municipalities that exceed their target.

“The housing crisis represents a foremost challenge for municipalities across the province and I’m grateful for this support from the Government of Ontario, which will help us continue to act ambitiously to grow the local housing stock,” said Matthew Shoemaker, Mayor of the City of Sault Ste. Marie. “The City is committed to leveraging every tool at our disposal and our efforts are already showing signs of success – we’re proud to be one of just 19 municipalities that exceeded our provincially assigned target for new homes starts in 2023.”

The Building Faster Fund includes $120 million for small, rural and northern municipalities to help build housing-enabling infrastructure and prioritize projects that speed up the increase of housing supply.

“$600,000 will go a long way,” said Ross Romano, MPP for Sault Ste. Marie. “I'm happy that we are giving back to communities like ours who are exceeding their housing targets.”

Quick Facts

• Ontario is investing historic amounts in housing- and community-enabling infrastructure to get more homes built across the province including the Building Faster Fund and the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund. The province recently announced a new $1 billion Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program, as well as quadrupled the provincial Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund to $825 million.
• In 2023, Ontario reached 99 per cent of its target of 110,000 new homes, which includes housing starts, additional residential units, and new and upgraded long-term care beds.
• Ontario broke ground on 18,992 rental starts in 2023, the highest number of rental starts on record.
• The province saw nearly 10,000 additional residential units created in 2023 – which includes changing single family homes into multi-unit residences or converting commercial office space into residential use – and nearly 10,000 new and upgraded long-term care beds.