Housing Needs Assessment
A healthy housing continuum should provide a broad range of housing options enabling households with different sizes, compositions, and incomes to access affordable and appropriate housing as needed. Housing need is linked to adequacy, availability, and affordability.
To realize a healthy housing continuum, precise information about existing housing stock, demographics, household formation, household size, income levels, population growth, and housing demand and supply is needed to create a data baseline. With this information, an assessment can be made to understand the extent to which the supply, built form, and tenure of housing meet current and future needs and where there may be existing or future gaps in the provision of a healthy housing continuum.
Hamilton Housing Continuum
- Homelessness Services: Social services for people who lack stable, safe, or adequate housing.
- Emergency Shelters: Short-term lodging for people experiencing homelessness.
- Transitional Housing: Temporary housing for people transitioning from shelters to permanent housing.
- Supportive Housing: Facilities with integrated services to help people experiencing or at risk of homelessness live independently.
- Community or Social Housing: Developed with public funding owned/operated by government, non-profits, or co-operatives.
- Below-Market Rental Housing: Private Rental or ownership units subsidized by government.
- Private Rental Housing: Units owned by individuals/firms charging market rents.
- Home Ownership: Housing purchase by individuals/households at market prices.
Background
The provision of sufficient housing to meet needs is a growing concern across the country, province, and region. Many actions have been proposed at all levels of government to address this concern, including a recent federal initiative, the Housing Accelerator Fund. The City of Hamilton submitted its Housing Accelerator Fund application to the federal government in June 2023 and was allocated $93.5 M for the incentivization of 2,675 net new residential units by 2027. One of the requirements of the HAF program is that participating municipalities must prepare an up-to-date Housing Needs Assessment by the end of 2024.
The City of Hamilton, Housing Secretariat Division has retained SHS Consulting to develop a Housing Needs Assessment which will analyze housing supply, demand, demographics, and affordability City-wide. This Housing Needs Assessment will validate Hamilton's key housing gaps, and provide detailed ward-by-ward information to help guide implementation of the Housing Sustainability and Investment Roadmap(External link)(HSIR). Specifically, the City can use this information to explore how to address current housing need and challenges with targeted and intentional policy initiatives, and bring us closer to a healthy housing continuum.
The 2024 Housing Needs Assessment will incorporate feedback gathered through a public survey on housing need, five ward-based community pop-ups, and several focus groups with key stakeholders. The general public is invited to share their thoughts on housing in Hamilton by participating in a pop-up event this September and completing the resident survey on housing need, which will be launched soon and close mid-September. The pop-ups will be drop-in style events in fully accessible buildings and other options for providing feedback will be available.
To learn more about the Housing Accelerator Fund and the City's seven initiatives accelerating housing supply in Hamilton, visit www.Hamilton.ca/HAF(External link).
Project Goals and Objectives
- Meet HAF program requirements with an up-to-date assessment.
- Engage the community to contextualize housing data.
- Identify and prioritize housing needs by ward.
- Set specific housing targets for each ward.
- Publish construction cost benchmarks for funding estimates.
- Recommend the City's role in addressing housing needs.
- Inform future housing strategies and investments.
Community Pop-ups
Attend a community pop-up in one of the following areas:
- Hamilton Centre: Tuesday October 1, 6:30pm to 8:30pm at Williams Fresh Café, 47 Discovery Dr(External link)
- Flamborough: Tuesday, October 8, 11 am to 1 pm at Binbrook Branch Library, 2641 Regional Road 56(External link)
- Hamilton East: Tuesday, October 8, 7 pm to 9 pm at CityHousing Hamilton Community House 41, 2 Oriole Crescent(External link)
- Hamilton West: Wednesday, October 9, 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm at Westmount Recreation Centre, 35 Lynbrook Dr(External link)
- Hamilton Mountain: Thursday, October 10, 1 pm to 3 pm at CF Lime Ridge Mall (Entrance #1), 999 Upper Wentworth Street(External link)