Public housing infrastructure investments can lead to economic benefits: report

A new report is helping define how strategic investment in public housing can drive economic growth while improving health, social outcomes and long-term community resilience across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA).

Commissioned by the GTHA Community Housing Collaborative, with support from Scotiabank, and prepared by the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis (CANCEA), the Public Housing Dividend Report provides a more complete framework for understanding how public housing investment contributes to stronger communities and a more resilient economy.

The Public Housing Dividend Report  (PHD) is a first-of-its-kind study that measures the full Return on Investment (ROI) communities receive from public housing infrastructure by quantifying social value alongside economic and fiscal outcomes. The report models five different investment scenarios in the GTHA over the next 25 years and examines the trade-offs between capital investment and downstream public expenditures to show what is gained or lost when public housing investments are increased or withdrawn.

The report’s findings suggest that a combined approach to renewing existing public housing infrastructure and expanding the portfolio can create measurable, compounding economic and social benefits over time. That strategy could generate $102 billion in combined economic and social value across the GTHA between 2026 and 2050. The central growth scenario projects nearly $50 billion in GDP impact over 25 years, alongside job creation, health care and justice system savings, and increased government revenues. This is in addition to healthier, happier communities where residents of public housing and their neighbours enjoy greater wellbeing, demonstrating why a broader, evidence-based view of value matters as Canada looks to scale public housing.

“Until now, economic analysis, social value measurement, health-system costing, and fiscal appraisal have each told part of the public housing story in isolation,” said Paul Smetanin, President, Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis (CANCEA). “The Public Housing Dividend brings those perspectives together within a single framework for the first time. What it shows is that public housing generates a measurable, positive rate of return for residents, communities, governments, and the wider economy simultaneously. ONEMODEL, a Canadian-developed simulation platform, makes that reconciliation possible by representing people, households, buildings, businesses, and governments as one connected system.”

Specific benefits of a capital program to build new publicly owned homes and renew the existing infrastructure include: 

• Job creation – more than 354,000 job-years of employment, reaching approximately 15,000 sustained full-time positions annually by 2050 in construction, retail, professional services, manufacturing and transportation.
• Health care and justice system savings – $1.8 billion in avoided costs related to emergency room visits, hospital inpatient days, and justice system events.   
• Private investment – $6.0 billion in private capital flows into communities where public housing is renewed and expanded, taking the form of new businesses and other investments that generate fresh activity and value for the surrounding area. 
• Stable housing – 23,000 public housing units added or protected from closure by 2050 and more than 86,000 additional individuals and families housed.
• Social value – $48.3 billion in value for communities and residents (the dollar value assigned to changes in people’s lives, including better physical and mental health, more stable families, improved housing satisfaction and greater community safety). 
• Tax revenue – $12.6 billion that flows to the Federal and Provincial governments generated through taxation on economic activity over 25 years.

“The Public Housing Dividend proves that public housing is productive infrastructure that generates measurable economic, health, and fiscal returns. Like bridges, transit, and hospitals, public housing infrastructure’s value goes far beyond its immediate purpose. It can meaningfully address the current housing crisis in the GTHA and go even further, creating value for residents, workers and businesses all across the region,” said Sean Baird, President and CEO, Toronto Community Housing Corporation.

Featured image: Toronto Community Housing CEO Sean Baird. (Scotiabank)