Assessing non-market supply outputs of Canada’s National Housing Strategy
Prepared by: Steve Pomeroy, Industry Professor, McMaster University; Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC)
At a glance
- Canada’s National Housing Strategy (NHS) set an overall affordable-supply target of 162,000 new homes by 2028, implying an average of 16,200 completed homes per year.
- Reported non-market completions reached just over 8,000 homes in 2025. Even with a generous adjustment for smaller centres, the total is estimated at roughly 9,700 homes – about 60% of the annual pace required.
- Since 2021, production has been concentrated in provinces with stronger unilateral programs and greater capacity to stack federal, provincial, and municipal support. British Columbia accounts for 42% of completions; Ontario accounts for 22%.
- Public progress reporting emphasizes approved or committed funding, rather than completed and occupied homes, and does not adequately address double counting where programs are stacked.
Purpose and approach
This brief assesses progress in adding new non-market (affordable) housing supply under the NHS. It complements published federal progress reports with a custom tabulation from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) Starts and Completions Survey (SCS). The analysis focuses on completed homes: units that can be occupied and begin assisting eligible households.
The tabulation uses CMHC’s non-market flag to estimate annual non-market completions by province and nationally. It captures centres with populations of 10,000 or more, so the estimates should be read as a minimum count of non-market completions.
Policy context
The 2017 NHS established ambitious goals to preserve existing social housing, assist lower-income households through the Canada Housing Benefit, and create new affordable homes. This brief focuses only on the new-supply objective.
The strategy initially targeted 100,000 new affordable homes through new initiatives, plus 50,000 more homes through the intensification and redevelopment of existing community non-profit housing. The National Housing Co-investment Fund – rebranded in 2023 as the Affordable Housing Fund (AHF) – and the Canada Community Housing Initiative/Federal Community Housing Initiative (CCHI/FCHI) were key delivery vehicles. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI) added a minimum target of 12,000 supportive homes and ultimately funded just over 15,000 units.
Setting aside the effects of program stacking and possible double counting, these commitments raised the overall affordable-supply target to 162,000 new homes by 2022. Most units were intended to be modestly affordable, with rents at or below median market rents; RHI units were intended to be more deeply affordable for people exiting homelessness.
Measuring new non-market supply
The SCS provides established data on housing starts and completions for all centres with populations above 10,000. It reports dwelling form and intended market, including ownership, condominium, and rental housing. Before 1995, it also published social-housing completions. After the end of federal funding for new social housing on December 31, 1994, production fell sharply and CMHC stopped publishing that detail, although it retained a non-market flag in the underlying data.
Figure 1. Non-market completions in centres of 10,000+ population, Canada
The custom tabulation makes it possible to estimate annual completions of new non-market homes – including non-profit and co-operative housing – from 1990 onward. Because the series measures completions, it appropriately reflects the lag between project approval, construction, and occupancy.
The historical series shows substantially higher production before the federal withdrawal in the mid-1990s. Completions then declined through the latter half of the 1990s and into the new millennium. Ontario maintained unilateral funding until 1995, while British Columbia and Quebec sustained programs at lower levels. The federal-provincial-territorial Affordable Housing Initiative (later Investments in Affordable Housing) brought a modest increase after 2002, and the higher completions in 2010-12 reflect stimulus funding under Canada’s Economic Action Plan.
Has new supply met the NHS target?
The 162,000-home NHS target implies a decade-long average of 16,200 completed homes per year. By year eight of the strategy, annual completion levels should be at or above that pace to achieve the overall target.
The completion data indicate that production remains well below the required level. In 2025, completions reached a peak of just over 8,000 homes – approximately one-half of the annual pace implied by the NHS target.
CMHC had ceased counting completions in smaller centres, although the coverage has since been reinstated. If centres below 100,000 population contributed an additional 20% – their share of total starts – estimated non-market completions would increase to roughly 9,700 homes. This is a generous adjustment because most non-market development occurs in mid-sized and large centres. Even at that level, annual output would be only about 60% of the desired pace.
The available data cannot determine the share of homes that are deeply affordable versus affordable at CMHC’s threshold of 80% of local average market rent. Given constraints on grant funding and the reliance on concessionary financing, the share of deeply affordable homes is likely limited outside the RHI. Some RHI spaces may also not be enumerated as units where they provide bed-sit rather than fully self-contained accommodation.
Geographic distribution of new supply
The data also show a pronounced geographic skew. Jurisdictions with more generous unilateral programs are better able to stack provincial or municipal support with NHS initiatives, or to supplement the NHS targets. The NHCF/AHF in particular favoured projects with partner contributions, which likely directed more federal funding toward jurisdictions – and often larger centres – with greater capacity to contribute additional assistance.
British Columbia and Quebec sustained social-affordable programming through the later 1990s and added programming alongside the AHI/IAH, although Quebec’s program activity has more recently subsided. Since 2021, British Columbia has accounted for 42% of Canada’s new non-market supply, making it the national leader in production.
Figure 2. Non-market completions by province and share of Canada total, since 2021
Ontario’s share is 22%, despite its’ substantially larger population. This is a low per-capita level and reflects the absence of significant provincial programming after responsibility for social-affordable housing was downloaded to local governments in the late 1990s. Quebec also records a low per-capita level, followed by Alberta, which has benefited from some new provincial investments.
Opportunities to strengthen reporting and data
The custom CMHC data used for this brief are currently available only at the provincial and national levels. CMHC has indicated that it plans to strengthen data collection and reporting, creating the potential for more granular geography in future releases.
A stronger reporting system would link SCS data with federal and provincial-territorial administrative program data, so that non-market projects funded through cost-shared and unilateral initiatives can be captured once and counted once. It should also disaggregate results by program and report the degree of affordability, including rents affordable to lower- and moderate-income households, as well as targeted vulnerable populations where appropriate.
Improved linkages among the SCS, the NHS-generated Social and Affordable Housing Survey (SAHS), and administrative funding data could provide a more robust foundation for independent research, program evaluation, and policy development. This will be especially important as federal and provincial-territorial housing ministries refresh and extend the NHS, which is scheduled to end in March 2028.
Research and reporting implications
- Use completed and occupied homes, alongside approvals and commitments, as the central measure of supply progress.
- Reconcile project-level program stacking to prevent double counting in public reporting.
- Publish comparable data below the provincial level, with consistent treatment of smaller centres.
- Link supply data to rent levels, affordability bands, and the populations assisted, using administrative data and SAHS where feasible.
Data note
This brief draws on a custom CMHC SCS tabulation for non-market completions. The estimates represent a minimum count because they cover centres of 10,000+ population. The analysis distinguishes completed homes from approved or committed funding and should not be interpreted as a program-by-program attribution of NHS outputs.
References
CMHC (2017) National Housing Strategy
Pomeroy, Steve (2020), Review and options to strengthen the National Housing Strategy, prepared for The Federal Housing Advocate, Canadian Human Rights Commission
Pomeroy, Steve (2026, Policy Brief to HUMA: Improving Transparency and Accountability in Federal Reporting on Social and Affordable Housing in Canada.