York Region continues to take action amid housing crisis
Newmarket – York Regional Council received several updates on initiatives underway to combat the current housing crisis and support residents experiencing or at risk of homelessness. This includes the newly approved 2024 to 2027 Homelessness Service System Plan, the 2023 Housing Solutions: A place for everyone progress report and the 2024 Housing Supply and Affordability Update.
York Region is working with partners and all levels of government to address issues arising from the housing crisis. Work is underway to provide a full range of housing options to meet resident needs of all ages, abilities, income levels and stages of life.
“Homelessness and housing affordability are complex and growing issues across York Region,” said York Region Chairman and CEO Wayne Emmerson. “As part of York Regional Council’s commitment to building strong, safe and caring communities, there are several immediate and long-term actions identified to improve housing stability and affordability. We look forward to collaborating with our partners as we continue to work toward innovative solutions to housing affordability.”
Updates received at Regional Council include:
2024 to 2027 Homelessness Service System Plan
More people are at risk of or experiencing homelessness in York Region due to a combination of factors, including limited affordable housing options and rising costs of living. The number of people experiencing homelessness increased from 1,395 in 2019 to 1,784 in 2023 and emergency beds and transitional housing are consistently at or near capacity due to increased demand.
The Homelessness Service System Plan seeks to help address immediate and long-term needs for residents experiencing or at risk of homelessness. The plan outlines goals and priority areas to improve, enhance and align homelessness services and supports, including homelessness prevention, intervention, housing stability and strengthening a coordinated system response with community partners.
Rapid deployment actions beginning in 2024 will support individuals at risk of or experiencing homelessness, including:
- Adding 139 new beds in existing emergency and transitional housing, hotel and seasonal shelters
- Adding staff to Community Paramedicine and Outreach Response Team
- Adding outreach workers to support clients living unsheltered or in encampments
- Helping people experiencing chronic homelessness
Further details about the 2024 to 2027 Homelessness Service System Plan are available online.
Housing Solutions: A Place for Everyone 2023 Progress Report:
York Region has continued to make significant progress towards goals and objectives set in the 2023 Housing Solutions: A place for everyone, including:
- Transitioned 1,294 people successfully from emergency housing to long-term housing and 671 people diverted from entering emergency housing to alternative housing options between 2019 to 2023
- Opened a new transitional housing site in both the Town of Georgina and Town of East Gwillimbury, adding 28 new units to the emergency and transitional housing system
- Built almost 460 new community housing units since 2019, including Unionville Commons which opened in 2023, providing 265 market and subsidized rental homes for seniors in the City of Markham; 497 more units are in planning and development stages
- Housed 2,800 households from the subsidized housing wait list since 2019 through community housing, rent supplement and portable housing benefits
Further details about this progress report are available online.
2024 Housing Supply and Affordability Update:
Annual monitoring on the ever-changing housing affordability landscape is crucial to understanding where York Region stands and where improvement is needed.
Key findings from the 2023 Measuring and Monitoring report and the 2024 Housing Supply Update include:
- As of March 2024, York Region has an approved housing supply of approximately 46,000 units, with 16,000 more under construction
- Only 15% of total new housing units were considered affordable and all were purpose-built rental units
- There were no new affordable ownership units for moderate-income households in 2023, a decrease from the 1% ownership units deemed affordable in 2022 and well below Regional targets
- A significant increase in new rental supply in 2023, with 1,271 new rental units, of which 265 were community housing units delivered by Housing York Inc.
Affordability pressures in York Region continue despite supply. Actively monitoring housing supply data is one of many steps York Region is taking to continuously prioritize housing affordability and inform the Affordable Private Market Housing Implementation Plan.
Visit york.ca/HousingAffordability for more details on monitoring housing supply and other housing affordability initiatives.
The Regional Municipality of York consists of nine local cities and towns and provides a variety of programs and services to more than 1.25 million residents and 57,000 businesses with more than 629,000 employees. More information about the Region’s key service areas is available at york.ca/regionalservices
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Media Contact:
Stephanie Crowley, Corporate Communications,
The Regional Municipality of York
Phone: 289-763-2598,
Email: @email
