Nova Scotia is building the first public housing in the province in decades.

Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister John Lohr and Member of Parliament for Halifax, Andy Fillmore, announced Wednesday, $83 million will be used to build 222 new public housing units, 80 of which will be fully barrier-free.

These developments are expected to benefit 522 families, individuals, and low-income seniors across both rural and urban communities in Nova Scotia.

The new housing will be built on provincially owned land close to existing public housing developments in several locations, including Bridgewater, Kentville, Truro, Cape Breton (multiple locations), and the Halifax Regional Municipality (multiple locations).

The buildings will be designed to be energy-efficient, sustainable, and affordable for residents. Importantly, rents for these units will be tied to the resident’s ability to pay. Gearing the rent towards income, will make the units accessible to individuals and families with varying financial means. The new units will be operated and managed by the Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency.

The funding breakdown for the project includes $58.8 million from the provincial government and an additional $24.4 million from the federal government.

The PC government has long held government shouldn’t be involved in public housing, instead they should provide the means for private developers to create affordable units.

Minister John Lohr said government began shifting their thinking over the summer. “If you look back to my more recent quotes, I was softening that position because I realized that this was something that we had been working on as a department over the summer to look at this possibility. And I can tell you that what did change was --  we do have an agreement and the money from CMHC, the federal partner, $24 million to build 80 accessible barrier free units,” said Lohr. “The way that we were doing that was, we were going into 40-year-old buildings and renovating them and my staff pointed out that this was a pretty inefficient way of doing it.”

Lohr says the renovated older unit would be tied up for a year during construction and in the end didn’t always result in the best accessible living space.

It was at that point the department decided to build 80 new accessible units and fund the creation of the 222 affordable spaces.

Andy Fillmore, Member of Parliament for Halifax, echoed these sentiments, emphasizing the importance of federal-provincial collaboration. He says the solution to the housing crisis won’t come from one level of government or from one organization.

“It has to come from every single person who is involved in every single organization and order of government who is involved in in housing. We all own a piece of it and we all have our own jurisdictional boundaries we need to observe,” said Fillmore. “We are working hard to play within our lines, work with provinces to change some of those lines where we need to, to provide more capital and get more units built.”

Nova Scotia NDP Leader Claudia Chender was in Bridgewater discussing affordable housing prior to this announcement.

She was direct when asked what she hoped to hear from the province and federal government.

“I would expect to see the creation of a significant number of truly affordable housing units across Nova Scotia. That's what I'm looking for,” said Chender. “And I would further expect that the province comes to the table with significant investment of their own to make that happen because so far, the vast majority of the affordable housing units that have been built in Nova Scotia in the past five years have been built with federal dollars. And I think it's time for the province to also take the role that really, they have by legislation and in our constitution”.

Chender says the new units are a start but fall far short of meeting the demand for affordable housing across Nova Scotia.

Minister Lohr says construction of the first new units is set to begin in spring 2024 with a goal to have people moving in during fiscal 2024/25.

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