Residents facing ouster from crumbing social housing units or years on a list for an affordable home will continue waiting for a government commitment to long-term stable funding. Federal and provincial ministers meeting at a summit on Friday made no immediate promises.

But the federal government promised that the roll-out of infrastructure money is just the start of a reinvestment by Ottawa in housing.

“There’s been a decade of underinvestment and lack of partnership with cities,” Liberal MP and former Toronto councillor Adam Vaughan told reporters following a morning of housing talk in Regent Park. “We have changed that fundamentally by putting the new money on the table in 2016. It’s a down-payment for the national housing strategy. We are back in the game federally on housing.”

Provincial Housing Minister Chris Ballard cited previous provincial investments and thanked the federal government for answering the province’s “persistent call” for a national housing strategy. He did not speak to how the province might contribute monetarily to reinvesting in housing long term, and took no questions.

Speaking to the Star by phone after the summit, Ballard said, “We’ll cross the future funding bridge as we get there.”

“Ontario has done a lot. There’s always more to do,” he added, citing a province-wide contribution to housing initiatives of $4 billion since 2003, including $1.2 billion for Toronto — which averages out to $92 million per year. Ballard called that a “significant contribution.”

Toronto Community Housing’s current operating budget gap for next year alone is $96 million.

“We know that need is great,” Ballard said.

Mayor John Tory — who earlier said commitments made thus far by the provincial government amid the affordable housing crisis have been the “tiniest little kernel” — said he was encouraged by Ballard’s attendance.

“He might have said he was busy or otherwise engaged himself,” Tory said. “I take it as an encouraging sign. We need their partnership.”

As Tory has settled into a message that the city’s housing crisis is an issue “for a generation,” Toronto’s mayor said Friday it’s a need that cannot wait.

“If you have to look people in the eye who are the most vulnerable and say, ‘Sorry, your housing is closing down because it hasn’t been repaired, because we didn’t have the money,’ or you have to look a whole generation in the eye and say, ‘Sorry, you can’t afford to live here, whether you rent or own,’ then that is a huge problem,” he said.

The only new money announced Friday was just over $200 million, an amount federal Families, Children and Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said could create 4,000 new affordable-housing units nationwide over the next five years.

But that investment covers only a fraction of the need, even for Toronto.

Toronto Community Housing alone says it will be forced to board up 4,000 units in the next three years without investments for repairs. And in Toronto alone there are more than 87,000 households on the waitlist for affordable housing. The need is also great in Vancouver and elsewhere.

Duclos said the government is working “across the housing spectrum” and that the infrastructure funds promised will work to address the most pressing needs.

The big-city mayors have outlined a roadmap for a national housing strategy which they presented Friday.

Included is the call for $12.6 billion of the available $20 million in “social” infrastructure funding be dedicated to housing, money that has yet to be delivered to cities.

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On that, Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson, who chairs the Big City Mayor’s Caucus, said there was no “immediate answer” from Duclos on whether they would agree to that proposal.

It remains unclear how much of that money will be earmarked for Toronto.

In an earlier interview with the Star, Tory criticized the federal and provincial governments for what he said was a “declining participation” in housing funding.

With operating agreements expiring, federal contributions to social housing, in Toronto, for example, will have reached zero dollars by 2032.

The seven recommendations from big-city mayors on the national housing strategy include:

Dedicating $12.6 billion of the available $20-billion federal commitment to social infrastructure for housing

Creating “long-term and significant” capital funding for both the construction and operation of new social and affordable housing

Doubling the federal Homelessness Partnering Strategy to $350 million annually through to 2025

Creating incentives to build more affordable rental housing, such as waiving GST from the cost to build

Encouraging new housing solutions by investing in ideas like co-housing and land trusts with flexible funding agreements

Creating a separate “Indigenous Housing Fund”

Reviewing the existing Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and its role in implementing the National Housing Strategy

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