{"id":550519,"date":"2026-03-21T05:14:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/550519\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T05:14:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:14:24","slug":"n-b-ottawa-to-spend-210m-helping-non-profits-build-new-homes-across-province","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/550519\/","title":{"rendered":"N.B., Ottawa to spend $210M helping non-profits build new homes across province"},"content":{"rendered":"

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New Brunswick\u2019s minister responsible for housing is touting a spending commitment for new affordable housing as the biggest of its kind in the province\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

The province and the federal government announced a combined $210 million in capital spending to help non-profit developers build up to 1,200 new housing units across New Brunswick over the next two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The province will spend another $90 million to supplement the rent tenants pay for those units over 20 years.<\/p>\n

“This agreement of 1,200 new homes … marks the single largest commitment of affordable housing in New Brunswick’s history,” David Hickey, the minister responsible for the New Brunswick Housing Corporation, said.<\/p>\n

This past year, he said the province built 275 non-profit affordable units.<\/p>\n

The federal government’s $150 million contribution comes from the Build Canada Homes agency, which was established last year as part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s pledge to boost the number of homes across the country.<\/p>\n

\"GregorHousing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson visited Fredericton to help unveil his government’s commitment of $150 million to help non-profit corporations build affordable housing in New Brunswick. (Ian Curran\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Hickey made the announcement Friday while flanked by a lineup of federal colleagues, including Internal Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson.<\/p>\n

The backdrop used for the announcement was a New Brunswick Public Housing building currently under construction on Charles Avenue in Fredericton.<\/p>\n

But Hickey made it clear the funding announced Friday was to help private, non-profit corporations build homes \u2014 not the public housing agency he oversees.<\/p>\n

“We can’t be the only ones developing [housing],” Hickey said when asked why none of the money was going toward new units that would be owned and operated by the New Brunswick Housing Corporation.<\/p>\n

“We need all hands on deck to make sure that we are responding to the crisis that we’re in, and that means partnerships with non-profits who know their communities, who know how to build in their communities and can get more done faster.”<\/p>\n

The spending commitments come as New Brunswick tenants have faced soaring rent costs, coupled with low vacancy rates for residential units, particularly since 2020.<\/p>\n

A sign of the effect that that has had is the list of people in line to rent a unit provided by the New Brunswick Housing Corporation, which typically charges much less than private, for-profit landlords do.<\/p>\n

That waiting list has ballooned from 5,000 households in 2019 to more than 13,000 households as of last year.<\/p>\n

WATCH | \u2018We really need to start developing that housing,\u2019 McAdam mayor says:\"\"<\/p>\n

Minister touts largest spending commitment for affordable homes in N.B.\u2019s history<\/p>\n

The federal and provincial governments plan to put a total of $300 million over the next two years into the initiative.<\/p>\n

Another sign of the soaring cost of housing is in the waiting list for a rent supplement the province provides to tenants who pay more than 30 per cent of their income toward rent. It stood at 12,000 households as of last spring.<\/p>\n

Similar investment not seen in 30 years, says non-profit developers rep<\/p>\n

The funding commitment made on Friday was welcome news for Peter Corbyn, executive director of the New Brunswick Non-Profit Housing Association, which has members who will get to tap into the newly announced funds.<\/p>\n

“We’ve been advocating for this type of investment for quite a few years,” Corbyn said.<\/p>\n

“If you look back in time, we’ve basically not had much investment in this sector for about 30 years.”<\/p>\n

\"PeterPeter Corbyn, executive director of the New Brunswick Non-Profit Housing Association, said his organization ‘couldn’t be happier’ with the announcement.
\n (Ian Curran\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Corbyn’s association represents about 170 non-profit housing corporations that own about 6,500 units across New Brunswick.<\/p>\n

He said while they’re not publicly-owned units, the corporations that own them make sure the rents they charge are less than 30 per cent of what their tenants take home in income.<\/p>\n

With Friday’s announcement, the number of housing units that come with affordable rent prices could jump by 18 per cent in two years.<\/p>\n

“It’s a fantastic announcement,” Corbyn said. “We couldn’t be happier.”<\/p>\n

Of the 1,200 new units the funding will help build, 450 of them will be in more rural parts of New Brunswick, according to a federal government news release.<\/p>\n

Another 160 of those 1,200 units will be for supportive and transitional housing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-550519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}