How Nova Scotia’s Budget Does, and Doesn’t, Address Housing
HALIFAX — When the provincial government presented its new budget a few days ago, it was clear that the focus was on fixing Nova Scotia’s healthcare crisis. They even named the budget “More Healthcare, Faster.”
But the province is also in the middle of a housing crisis, especially in Halifax, which has a vacancy rate hovering around one percent.
Katie Brousseau, a community worker with Dalhousie Legal Aid, has been on the front lines of the crisis. She has helped people with lower incomes fight rent increases and renovictions from landlords. Brousseau has told Huddle that these people are often fighting to stay in less-than-desirable living conditions because they have nowhere else to go.
She has publicly called on the provincial government to increase the supply of public housing to combat the crisis around affordable housing. So, she was disappointed to see no mention in the budget of money to build upon Nova Scotia’s 11,200 publicly-owned units. The province did, however, provide $21 million (an increase of $15 million) to repair existing units.
“Public Housing in Nova Scotia is aging, with many units either in a state of disrepair or altogether uninhabitable,” Brousseau recently told Huddle. “While increasing the budget for repairs is positive, ensuring public housing is in a good state of repair and fit for habitation is already the responsibility of the province. Furthermore, even if every public housing unit was in pristine condition, there are still not enough units to meet the need of those seeking this housing.
“Nova Scotians require a clear commitment from the province to increase the availability of all affordable housing. We need targeted investments across all levels of government allocated to the building and development of affordable housing stock in both the public and private sectors.”
The province also increased the budget for rent supplements by $21.6 million. This will add 1,000 supplements (given directly to eligible tenants by the government), for a total of 8,000. It is also adding $8.2 million for homelessness and supportive housing.
The single line item to address the Halifax housing crisis, specifically, is $2.5 million to accelerate housing developments in the city. When asked for clarification on how this money would be spent, a spokesperson for the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing said it will help the work of the HRM task force, which was created to “assist in expediting development approvals and addressing the backlog in housing supply.”
The spokesperson, in response to Huddle’s inquiry on housing, didn’t answer why there is no money for more public housing, instead touting the increased investment in other areas of housing supports.
“With this year’s budget, we will now be investing more than $50M in the rent supplement program, more than double the investment since 2021/22, bringing the total number of rent supplements to 8000 per year.
“This budget builds on the bold and historical investments of close to $200M this government has made in housing, infrastructure, supply, people, and communities over the past 18 months.”
In 2022, the Auditor General wrote a scathing report on how Nova Scotia managed public housing. Kim Adair noted that the public housing stock was underutilized, and there was a lack of good governance around managing the system.
The Adair also noted two depressing stats: there were 5,950 applications on the waitlist, and people usually wait for more than two years to be placed in a unit.
In the email response to Huddle, the department’s spokesperson said there are still 4,790 on the waitlist, but that the average wait time has already been reduced by 10 percent: from 2.28 years to 2.06 years.
“We are creating and updating policies to ensure consistency across the province. This will ensure that the stock we have is being used to accommodate and house the most people possible. The new provincial housing agency has only been in place since December and we’re already seeing improvements,” states the spokesperson.
“We’re also continuing to invest in maintaining our existing units to ensure we preserve these valuable assets for years to come. In fact, the province is investing more than $50M in new capital funding to preserve and improve our existing public housing stock over the next five years”
Mayor Savage Reacts
IN a recent interview, Halifax Mayor Mike Savage told Huddle all municipalities struggle with having enough money to help with housing. Since municipalities don’t have such a large budget, they look to provincial and federal governments for help.
“It’s very clear that the focus is on healthcare [in the budget]. That’s obvious,” stated Savage. “That’s what the government campaigned on and clearly that’s what they’re going to focus on.
“I have a thought when I look at any provincial budget these days: holy cow, these guys are rolling in money. All the provincial and federal governments seem to be having windfalls of revenue, which unfortunately municipalities do not.
“I am hoping that there will be more for housing and particularly for affordable housing and homelessness, which is really important and is the issue that is most forefront of my mind and a lot of mayors’ minds around the country.”
When asked for his thoughts were on what was or wasn’t included for building more public housing, Savage said he wasn’t going to pick a fight with the province. Instead, he wants to work with his counterparts to solve the crisis.
“I’m not interested in picking fights with the government. I’m interested in working with the government on these issues and, certainly as a municipality, we’ve made our own commitments,” said Savage. “I do see that they are trying to address many, many years of neglect [with the budget for repairs].
“There have been indications that the provincial government is looking to build more housing. We haven’t really had significant investments in the building of affordable housing in this province for decades. That’s all governments of all party stripes.”
Savage said there are 1,000 homeless people in the city. He also said there are 11,000 units that have been given a permit but 40 per cent of them aren’t even being built yet. And there is even more that are going through the application process.
“We are actively planning for 162,000 units, which would house over 350,000 people. That would be covered under the centre plan,” he said
“We’re going to need, according to our number, 6800 new units a year to keep pace with growth. That’s a lot more than what exists right now.”
Derek Montague is a Huddle reporter in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].