Ontario Premier Doug Ford was in Kitchener on Thursday morning to dole out $14 million to the city of Kitchener for meeting its housing targets in 2023.
The City of Kitchener was awarded the money from the provincial government after it exceeded its housing target by 135 per cent.
“Last year, the mayor and Kitchener council, they hit it out of the park. They exceeded Kitchener’s 2023 target by breaking ground on 3,579 homes,” Ford said. “Just think of that — how you’ve changed lives for 3,579 families that are going to be able to call home, home and have a roof over their head.”
Ford did not say whether that number included long-term care beds or basement apartments.
In 2023, Ontario reported 89,297 housing starts, which it boosted to 109,011 by including long-term care beds and other alternative spaces like basement units in the numbers. The government has strongly defended its decision to include long-term care homes as housing starts.
It was recently revealed that the province is looking to include student housing and retirement homes in those numbers in the future as it looks to build 1.5 million homes.
Ford defended that move on Thursday.
“If the students aren’t housed on the site, then guess what? They’re taking rental property off someone else that needs it within the community,” he said.
He also said the city will be allowed to use the funds for infrastructure work intended to create more housing.
Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic was on hand to receive the funding from the province and noted that city council will continue to work on reaching its targets.
“With the province’s support and today’s commitment of $14 million from your government to support our homebuilding efforts, we now have further momentum to achieve our shared goals to build more homes now,” Vrbanovic said.
Last March, city council signed off on a pledge to see 35,000 new homes built in Kitchener by 2031.
In a release, the city said it has already issued planning approvals for 12,508 new housing units, which works out to 36 per cent of its total.
The money awarded to Kitchener comes from the province’s $1.2-billion Building Faster Fund, which sees municipalities rewarded when they meet their housing targets.
— with files from Global News’ Isaac Callan & Colin D’Mello
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