COCHI, OPHI and COHB

COCHI, OPHI and COHB are delivered by Ontario in partnership with the federal government to support the province’s key priorities in community housing.

Forty-seven municipal Service Managers (municipalities and district social services administration boards) fund and administer community housing.

The Ontario Priorities Housing Initiative provides flexible funding to all 47 Service Managers and the two Indigenous Program Administrators to address local priorities in the areas of housing supply and affordability, including new affordable rental construction, community housing repair, rental assistance, tenant supports and affordable homeownership.

COCHI helps maintain Ontario’s social housing supply (for example, repair funding for existing stock), including Urban Native Housing ( UNH ) units, and is expanding the supply of rent-assisted units.

OPHI provides funding to address local housing priorities and improve access to affordable housing options. The initiative will help to increase affordable housing supply, increase housing affordability, and improve the state of repair of the affordable and social housing stock. Eligible funding activities include:

• increasing community housing supply (for example, construction of housing or conversion to housing)
• providing support services to affordable and social housing tenants

COHB increases affordability of rental housing in Ontario by providing portable housing benefits directly to households in need that are on, or eligible to be on, a social housing waiting list and to households in financial need living in community housing.

The Canada-Ontario Community Housing Initiative provides funding to Service Managers to replace the federal Social Housing Agreement funding that expires each year, beginning April 2019. This funding can be used by Service Managers to repair, regenerate and expand community housing and to protect affordability support for tenants.

For example, the province’s MOH has recently announced funding for the creation of Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment ( HART ) hubs which will include a supportive housing component. MMAH has worked with MOH to identify eligibility requirements that will allow supportive housing units created under these initiatives to be counted towards the expansion target.

SMs and IPAs are required to prioritize funding to address the housing needs of the identified vulnerable populations. Up to 20% of cost-matching funding can also be used to provide support services to ensure housing retention, greater self-reliance and social inclusion, for tenants/occupants.

As part of SMs NHS budgetary planning process, SMs submit annual investment plans, which are subject to Ministry approval. These plans detail how SMs propose to use their NHS funding allocation.