Canada to Boost Affordable Housing With New Agency

A new affordable housing federal agency is launching north of the border.

On Sunday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the creation of a new government body dedicated to building affordable housing, Reuters reported. The agency, dubbed Build Canada Homes, is supported by nearly $9.4 billion (13 billion Canadian dollars) in capitalization.

The move is a fulfillment of a campaign promise to beef up residential construction across the country.

“We’re in a housing crisis,” Carney told reporters in Nepean, Ontario, per Reuters. “And it’s going to take all hands on deck to get us out of it.”

Build Canada Homes will construct affordable housing for low-income households and work in tandem with private developers to build homes that would attract middle-class residents, according to Carney.

By reducing upfront costs and leveraging public lands for housing, the agency is expected to cut down any risks usually associated with building housing in Canada, Carney said.

The housing push is part of Carney’s multi-pronged approach to boosting the Canadian economy. The prime minister has recently announced projects that would diversify the country’s economy and reduce its reliance on the United States, as tariffs complicate the economic relationship between the two North American giants.

“We’re transforming Canada’s economy from one that had become too reliant on a single trading partner to an economy that’s more diverse,” Carney said, per Reuters. As a result of the tariff war with the States, Canada’s upcoming budget will see quite an increase in its deficit.

“It’ll be bigger than it was last year,” Carney said. “First and foremost, it’s the tariff war.”

Canada’s Liberal Party pledged additional spending of approximately $94 billion over the next four years. In April, the party estimated that the country’s budget for 2025 and 2026 would be more than $45 billion — a notable jump from the $30.5 billion predicted late last year.

Canada’s rental housing vacancy rate reached a five-year high in the second quarter of this year, climbing up to 4.1 percent, per Yardi. For rentals in the U.S., the vacancy rate was at 7 percent last quarter, according to the Census Bureau.

— Chris Malone Méndez