Solutions Lab
Building a resilient community housing sector
ONPHA’s Solutions Lab was delivered in collaboration with SHS Consulting. This initiative brought together key leaders in the sector – including housing providers, service managers, and sector associations. Together, we developed and tested creative business models and policy recommendations to ensure the sustainability and resilience of community housing in Ontario, while addressing the urgent end-of-mortgage funding formula issue.
ONPHA’s Solutions Lab Culminating report
Download the culminating report today to learn more about our Lab’s approach and our collective vision for the future. Discover the steps we’re taking to build a resilient housing sector through collective action.
The viability of ~60,000 subsidized units is at risk
The Housing Services Act, 2011 (HSA) funding formula poses an imminent risk to the viability of many community housing providers. Although urgent, this issue offers opportunities for innovation, challenging assumptions, and reimagining the future of community housing in Ontario. The Protecting Tenants and Strengthening Community Housing Act, 2020 (Bill 184) addresses this, amending the HSA and creating opportunities for providers nearing the end of their mortgage or operating agreement to:
- exit the HSA funding and regulatory system; and/or
- enter into a new service agreement and new obligations with their service manager.
Bill 184 legal analysis
Overview of the Act and its potential impacts on and opportunities for community housing
DownloadThe time to act is now
The details related to these exit and service agreements (and other amendments) were still unknown and were determined through regulation. After initial consultations in April 2021, the Province launched consultations on most proposed regulatory amendments under the HSA (service/exit agreements, service levels, and access) on December 20, 2021. Participants submitted comments by February 18, 2022.These consultations offered an important opportunity for the community housing sector to collaborate on developing regulations and creating a sustainable housing system.
There is also widespread interest among Ontario’s housing providers and service managers to address the ongoing and worsening housing challenges across the province.
- Download our report and learn more about this project.
- Support our vision by sharing the report with your community.
- Draw on the findings from the report to help inform your advocacy priorities.
What will community housing look like in 2051?
Solutions Lab Results
We asked our Solutions Lab participants to cast their imaginations 30 years into the future to envision what they would want the sector to look like in 2051. Using that vision as the goal, participants then built a roadmap of possible ways we could get there together.
Here’s what we learned.
A shared desired future. We hope to have a community housing sector that: better serves residents, addresses residents’ support needs, builds capacity, has long-term resilience and stability, takes collective action, and fosters social integration.
How we’ll get there. In order to get there, we need to: shift our roles in the system, think differently about how we work and our impact, and reimagine our relationship between players.
We’re stronger together. Each stakeholder group has distinct perspectives and priorities. However, the Solutions Lab revealed many areas of alignment among the diverse participants, which we were pleased to see. It’s within these alignments that we can work together towards a collective vision for the future of community housing.
Where do we go from here?
ONPHA will share the process and outcomes of this Solutions Lab with the Province, highlighting the collective vision and solutions developed by housing providers, service managers, and sector associations. We encourage all stakeholders to do the same.
We will also draw on the findings to help inform our advocacy priorities from the housing provider perspective.
Additional resources
Our partners
To ensure this critical work could get underway, ONPHA funded Phases 1 and 2 of the Solutions Lab. Along with ONPHA’s continued commitment to the initiative, we are also very grateful for the generous support contributed by the Community Housing Transformation Centre and the Cooperative Housing Federation of Canada that allowed us to move forward with Phases 3 to 5.