Understanding Peel's housing need and service levels

Learn how Peel's housing needs are assessed and the service level we need to fully help our residents.

Peel Region oversees the affordable housing system in Peel. We work with partners to implement our 10-year Housing and Homelessness Plan. which was developed with the community. The Plan was developed with the community and its main goals are to help clients get and keep housing they can afford.

Peel is facing an affordable housing crisis that is deep, enduring, and inequitable.

The affordable housing system has insufficient resources to maintain assets, increase supply and support clients at the level that fully addresses the need of our community.

The challenges Peel is facing

There is a lack of deeply affordable and supportive housing for those people with low incomes, or who are experiencing family, physical, mental health, and addiction struggles.

Rising housing prices and rent has made it increasingly unaffordable for middle-income earners to live in the region and now need our help to remain in their homes.

Our role

As Service Manager of the affordable housing system, we focus on the lack of affordable and supporting housing. The Ontario government and Canadian government are more focused on rising housing prices.

We provide households with financial and non-financial support to help them get and keep housing they can afford. This includes ongoing subsidies and one-time funding to allow them to remain housed by avoiding eviction by paying overdue rent and utilities. In 2023, Peel Region provided housing, financial assistance, or support to over 33,000 households in Peel more than 4,800 households that received one-time financial assistance to prevent homelessness. This includes funding for first and last month’s rent, assistance with moving costs or help to pay overdue utilities. This represents an increase of over 1,400 households who received these funds in 2023 when compared to 2022.

However, even though we have seen a huge increase in demand, we have worked hard to improve our service through our Client Pathway which has helped reduce the time spent waiting to receive housing support, after making a service request. In 2022, the average number of days for an applicant to have their intake appointment was 101 days. In 2023 applicants waited on average 43 days to get their intake with staff. The overall improvement in response time from housing screening to intake from 2022 to 2023 was 80%. We also simplified client consents which reduced the time it took to complete to 3.5 minutes from 7 minutes previously.

Current need – the numbers

It’s estimated that it could take up to $50 billion over the next 10 years to meet 100% of core housing need in Peel. An additional $4 billion is required to continue to meet 19% of need over the next 10 years. This level of funding is not possible from property tax alone. Addressing the housing crisis requires an all of government approach. And increased investment from all levels of government, the private and non-profit sectors.

Due to population growth, at the end of 2023, it’s now estimated that about 97,000 households in Peel are living in core housing need, which still represents about 1 in 5 households in Peel. A household is in core housing need if:

Its housing is unacceptable and does not meet one or more of the adequacy, suitability or affordability standards.
Acceptable alternative housing in the community would cost 30% or more of its net income.

The Centralized Waiting List in Peel now includes 32,329 households. This is a 12% increase since December 2022. And a 32% increase since 2020, when approximately 22,000 households were on Peel’s waiting list.

Our estimate that approximately 97,000 households in Peel Region are in core housing need. Core housing need is based on adjusting our internal estimate for the proportion of households in core housing need for the census year 2021 to account for the latest intercensal population estimates for Peel region provided by Statistics Canada.

Our internal methodology for calculating core housing need was developed out of concern that the official 2021 census estimate of core housing need was influenced by the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Our methodology for estimating need in the region for the various programs and service types outlined above drew on a variety of data sources. For further details about our methods contact us.

Peel Region cannot solve the affordable housing crisis alone

Chronic underfunding from the Canadian and Ontario governments for both community and supportive housing continues to prevent Peel Region from operating at a scale that meets our community’s needs.

We must continue to advocate to Canadian and Ontario governments for the policy and funding changes needed to effectively address the affordable housing crisis. These policy and funding changes are summarized in our HOME advocacy framework, approved by Regional Council last year.

Peel Region Council report: Overview of the Provincial and Federal housing announcements: implications for Peel Region

These positions include:

Ensuring the use of existing housing for homes.
Funding housing services and supports that are delivered by service managers,
District Social Services Administration Boards and sector partner agencies appropriately.
Prioritizing the construction of new non-profit and affordable homes and the maintenance of existing non-profit and affordable homes.
Enhancing social and income support to close the gap between earned income and affordability.