Ontario Rewards SSM with $600,000 for Exceeding 2023 Housing Target

Rob Flack, Associate Minister of Housing, announced Ontario will be providing Sault Ste. Marie with $600,000 in funding through the Building Faster Fund as the city exceeded its 2023 housing target, breaking ground on a total of 213 new housing units last year.

“Our government is making historic investments in infrastructure to give municipalities the tools they need to ensure that every resident has an affordable place to call home, including our $1.2 billion Building Faster Fund and $1.8 billion in additional funding announced in our recent budget,” said Rob Flack, Associate Minister of Housing. “Sault Ste. Marie and all other municipalities that have met or exceeded their housing targets should be proud of the work they have done to get shovels in the ground faster.”

Announced in August 2023, the Building Faster Fund is a three-year, $1.2 billion program that is designed to encourage municipalities to address the housing supply crisis. The fund rewards municipalities that make significant progress against their targets by providing funding for housing-enabling and community-enabling infrastructure. Funding is provided to municipalities that have reached at least 80 per cent of their provincially assigned housing target for the year with increased funding for municipalities that exceed their target.

“The housing crisis represents a foremost challenge for municipalities across the province and I’m grateful for this support from the Government of Ontario, which will help us continue to act ambitiously to grow the local housing stock,” said Matthew Shoemaker, Mayor of the City of Sault Ste. Marie. “The City is committed to leveraging every tool at our disposal and our efforts are already showing signs of success – we’re proud to be one of just 19 municipalities that exceeded our provincially assigned target for new homes starts in 2023.”

The Building Faster Fund includes $120 million for small, rural and northern municipalities to help build housing-enabling infrastructure and prioritize projects that speed up the increase of housing supply.

“$600,000 will go a long way,” said Ross Romano, MPP for Sault Ste. Marie. “I’m happy that we are giving back to communities like ours who are exceeding their housing targets.”