Federal-Provincial Housing initiative

In March 2013, the governments of Canada and British Columbia announced the Federal-Provincial Housing (FPH) initiative, a program that will assist vulnerable British Columbia families and individuals in need including people at risk of homelessness. Read news release. 

The federal and provincial governments are contributing a combined total of approximately $155 million for Federal-Provincial Housing initiative apartments in British Columbia. Municipalities and community partners contributed to the FPHi developments through a combination of property tax exemptions, waived developmental costs charges, land equity and/or capital cost contributions.

The new Federal-Provincial Housing initiative is the final and largest component of the $180 million Investment in Affordable Housing (IAH) 2011-2014 Agreement between the Governments of Canada and British Columbia.     With matching contributions of $90 million from both levels of government, this total combined investment supports affordable housing programs for B.C. residents.

The B.C. government had been anticipating the extension of the IAH agreement since the federal five- year announcement in 2008 and committed to cost sharing requirements for projects already under development. This was done to ensure that projects could be completed sooner rather than waiting for the federal funding to be confirmed. The majority of the provincial share of $90 million was committed to projects under development at the time the agreement was signed.