Federal government announces new affordable housing project for Charlottetown

Ottawa will fund the building of a new 82-unit housing project that will be owned and operated by the P.E.I. Housing Corporation, federal Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen announced in Charlottetown Wednesday morning.

The project will cost a total of $30 million, with $5 million coming from the city stream of Ottawa's Rapid Housing Initiative, and the rest from the provincial government.

"Through the Rapid Housing Initiative, we are quickly providing new affordable housing units for people who need them most, right across Canada, including right here in Charlottetown," said Hussen in a news release.

The building will include 64 units dedicated to seniors, and 18 for women and children.

P.E.I.'s housing situation has been described as a crisis since 2019, and historic rates of population growth have been recognized as a central factor in the housing shortage.

Based on growth projections, the Department of Finance says the province needs to build more than 2,000 housing units a year just to keep up. That would not be enough to ease the shortage.

In the last five years housing construction topped out at 1,484 units in 2020, according to figures from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. That had dropped to 1,266 by 2022.

The federal government says the Rapid Housing Initiative is expected to create at least 4,500 affordable housing units in Canada.