Shantaé Campbell
Mon, May 6, 2024
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Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said it exceeded its targets under the National Housing Strategy in 2023 despite what it called “significant economic challenges.”
The Crown corporation, charged with administering the country’s national housing programs, released its annual report on Monday, revealing its progress in meeting the mandates of the NHS — a 10-year plan launched in 2017. According to the report, CMHC delivered 153,708 new, repaired, or assisted affordable housing units last year, surpassing the NHS’s target of 120,000 units. The overall number of new, repaired, or assisted units delivered through CMHC programs in 2023 was 494,319, well above the agency’s target of 350,000 units.
“Rising interest rates to tame inflation and labour shortages hindered the country’s ability to create much needed housing supply,” said Michel Tremblay, the agency’s acting president and chief executive officer. “Yet, even in these challenging times, we met our ambitious goals for 2023.”
CMHC attributes its success to several factors, including its Affordable Housing Fund, which provides low-interest loans to partner organizations, and the popularity of its multi-unit mortgage loan insurance product, MLI Select.
“Canada’s housing challenges are serious, complex and urgent, but they are solvable,” Tremblay said.
He reiterated the agency’s finding that Canada needs an additional 3.5 million homes beyond current projections to restore housing affordability.
The corporation’s financial report showed a nine per cent drop in total income before income taxes compared to 2022, mainly due to a $210 million decrease in assisted housing activity caused by higher net losses on financial instruments.
Despite this challenge, MLI Select supported the construction, refinancing or purchase of more than 220,000 units, 40 per cent of which were new construction. This helped CMHC declare dividends of $1.08 billion, funded from retained earnings and net income of $1.31 billion. Total insurance-in-force reached $414 billion by the end of 2023, up $15 billion from the previous year.
Still, with higher interest rates and persistent labour shortages, developers were unable to reach the 270,000-unit new-home construction levels seen in 2021 to 2022, achieving 241,735 units instead.
Looking ahead, CMHC said it will be implementing new initiatives, such as consulting with the housing industry to create a catalogue of homes, aimed at speeding up construction.
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In December, federal housing minister Sean Fraser announced plans for such a catalogue, part of an update of a post-war housing strategy that aimed to simplify the approval and construction processes. Fraser said the initiative would at first focus on low-rise buildings such as small multiplexes, student housing and seniors’ residences.
• Email: shcampbell@postmedia.com
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