Affordable Housing Plan

Building Better Futures: 3,500 affordable homes in 5 Years 

The Region of Waterloo is committed to making housing affordable for all because we believe communities thrive when everyone has a place to call home. With the need for affordable housing growing, the Region is dedicated to increasing and preserving the number of affordable homes. Housing is affordable when the household spends less than 30% of their income on housing costs.

In the first phase of our plan, we exceeded our goal to develop 2,500 new homes over by the end of 2025, increasing affordable housing we generated from an average of 50 units per year to 500 units per year.

Our new target is to create or preserve up to 3,500 affordable homes by the end of 2029, with 2,100 of those (60%) dedicated to households with very-low-to-low income.

The plan includes the following elements, building on the success to date:

• Lands for Affordable Housing: using land to develop affordable housing, including existing Waterloo Region Housing (WRH) properties
• Funding and Resources: incentivizing affordable housing development and increasing community capacity
• Preserve Affordable Housing: preserving units of existing community and affordable housing
• Community Collaboration: working alongside community partners, area municipal partners, and cross-departmental teams to realize this vision
• Policy and Advocacy: advocating for new policies and funding to support new affordable housing and the preservation of existing affordable housing

Dashboard

As we move forward with our strategic plan for affordable housing, you can stay up to date on our progress with this dashboard. It displays key updates, including how many new homes have been occupied to date, a projection of new homes in development, and a map plotting each site.