Why housing must be a priority in 2026
If you feel like housing has become harder to afford in Kawartha Lakes and Haliburton County, you’re not imagining it. Rents are rising at a pace more often seen in major cities, and more residents (seniors, workers, and families) are feeling the pressure. The new 10-Year Deeply Affordable and Supportive Housing (DASH) Strategy shows just how serious the situation has become, and why our next municipal budget must treat housing as a top priority.
Homelessness will triple if we do nothing
The DASH Strategy projects that without new investment, homelessness in our region will rise from about 450 people today to 1,545 within ten years. That’s a 243 per cent increase. This could mean more encampments, more strain on shelters, and higher demand for emergency services.
It is also far more expensive to ignore the problem. Managing chronic homelessness costs $29,000 to $59,000 per person each year, while providing stable housing costs less than half that amount. Every dollar invested in housing reduces pressure on policing, hospitals, and crisis response teams.
The message is unmistakable: inaction costs more than action.
Half of renters can’t afford local market rents
For many residents, the private rental market has become simply unattainable. A single person in receipt of Ontario Works receives $390 for shelter, yet the average one-bedroom apartment costs $1,612. Even a full-time minimum wage worker can only reasonably spend $1,376 on rent, still far below what the market demands.
The result is clear: the private market alone cannot meet our community’s needs. Public investment is essential.
A plan to reverse the trend
The DASH Strategy outlines a bold but achievable investment plan: $260 million over 10 years to create 541 new homes, including 356 deeply affordable and 120 supportive housing units. This would reduce homelessness by an estimated 78 per cent by Year 10.
This level of commitment positions us to attract funding contributions from provincial and federal partners to support our DASH Strategy. Without a strong local contribution, that outside funding simply won’t come.
A budget that builds stability
The housing crisis will not fix itself. But we now have a clear, evidence-based path forward. By funding housing as a core priority in the 2026 Budget, we can shift from managing emergencies to building real solutions; and create a more stable, healthy, and inclusive community for everyone.
Housing isn’t just a line item. It’s the foundation of our future.
$260 million to create 541 homes. $480,000 per apartment/housing unit?
If we assumed 700 sq ft per unit, that suggests close to $700 per sq ft construction cost.
The current Provincial Average is $320 – $550+ per sq ft and across Rural Ontario: $280 – $420 per sq ft.
We certainly need to address homelessness (and address all of its varied causes), but we apparently also need to address Program Cost Effectiveness for building affordable housing. Frugality is not an unreasonable expectation from the Taxpayer that is footing the bill.
This irritates me. Why not give that $60,000 directly to the homeless to pay for rent, food, and warmth? I believe the answer is simple. Our society assumes the poor are deserving of their poverty and/or too stupid to be able to manage their own lives. And I think our middle class likes to have a lower class to look down on. I mean, we are willing to give middle-class workers $60,000+ to keep the poor down with means tests and so on but we don’t care enough about those living outside to give them the money they need for safe shelter. The commonly accepted explanation is that we don’t trust them because they are mentally ill. But that’s an excuse. Homelessness more often causes mental illness than the other way around. So does the anxiety of never having enough to eat because you have to spend all of your inadequate means on shelter. And forget about a social life. If you haven’t the means to properly feed yourself and/or your family, you certainly haven’t the means to buy a bus pass or a cup of coffee with a friend. With AI threatening to aid the economy by retiring bureaucrats and labour generally, some enterprising federal politician should jump the gun and run on a promise to reform Canada’s welfare system, to replace all current programs with an income tax return-triggered monthly basic income generous enough to empty all the shelters and retire all the food banks. The bureaucracy that currently forms the biggest cost of poverty in Canada can transfer their skills to Corrections which it appears is set to become a growth industry in the near future. And the beauty of a system that treats basic necessities of life as a citizen entitlement rather than a morality benefit that requires violating the privacy rights of the poorest is that it would save taxpayers $millions every year in AI administration. If your income falls below a fairly estimated poverty level, CRA software will automatically send you a monthly cheque. No questions asked because you are a citizen just like the rest of us, because you are equal not lesser than the rest of us.