Housing & Homelessness Advisory Committee
Meeting Minutes

operating budget issue, the city has not been at the prescribed social housing unit service level standard set by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing for a number of years. The service level standard issue is not isolated to the City of Windsor; as other Service Managers have also identified similar shortfalls in their legislated service levels. Housing Services has developed a plan to achieve an increase to our service level over a 3-year period at a cost of $750,000 (City and County cost-shared). The housing benefit will go directly to individuals who are eligible to be on the Central Housing Registry waiting list.

D. Cercone advises the County in their 2020 budget approved $1.5 M for funding in a reserve for the purposes of social/affordable housing. The County is preparing for future needs around housing and has slowly started to build reserves for that purpose.

D. Cercone adds there are no changes to the CHC budget for 2020. There was some question around whether they could reduce their budget as they had put forward a request for an increase primarily driven by municipal taxes. A recommendation was made to not increase the budget pending additional information regarding the municipal tax situation and then make a recommendation going forward in terms of their operating budget.

5.4 Canada Ontario Housing Benefit

D. Cercone indicates the Canada Ontario Housing Benefit was announced in December 2019 as part of the National Housing Strategy and is co-funded by the provincial and federal governments. It is expected that overall 40,000 households will be assisted by 2027/2028 and notification was received that the allocation for Windsor Essex is $755,473 for the 2020/2021 year. This benefit will be delivered through the Ministry of Finance and is similar to the Portable Housing Benefit Special Priority Policy (PHB-SPP) which is designated for victims of domestic violence or human trafficking. In relation to the COHB, Service Managers will be responsible for marketing activities, providing education, assisting applicants with completing forms, and submitting required documents to the Ministry of Finance (MOF). The MOF will assess applications, determine eligibility, calculate the COHB, and issue monthly COHB payments to eligible households. Households that receive this benefit have to be taken off the Central Housing Registry Waiting List (although the province indicates they may reapply again).

5.5 Reaching Home/ CAB

As many of you may recall, Housing Services issued a Request for Proposals to fund eligible proponents to deliver components of and receive funding from April 1, 2020 - March 31, 2024 (program years 2 - 5) under the Government of Canada's Reaching Home: Canada's Homelessness Strategy as a component of Windsor Essex Housing Connections.