$5.5M in new funding for affordable housing in Windsor, Kingsville

The federal and provincial governments are suppling an additional $5.5 million for affordable housing units in Windsor and Kingsville.

The funding will go towardthe Meadowbrook Lane Development in Windsor and fournew affordable, accessiblehousing units at 215 Division St. in Kingsville, announced Windsor-Tecumseh MP Irek Kusmierczyk Thursdayon behalf of the Minister of Families, Children and Social DevelopmentAhmed Hussen.

The 10-storey, 145-unit Meadowbrook development will cost $51 million with funding supplied by all three levels of government. Of the units in the high-rise, 41 will be affordable housing and 46 will be accessible housing. The development is expected to be completed by summer of 2022, Kusmierczyk said.

"These projects are not cheap and they can't be done alone, the cost can't be shouldered by one level of government, that's absolutely impossible," Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said during Thursday's news conference.

"It is a substantial material investment by the municipality, by the province and by the federal government in a project that we know is needed desperately in communities across Canada including our own."

The project was first announced August 2019 and encountered delays earlier this year when the pandemic hit. In July, construction was back on track.

The new funding announced Thursday includes an additional $2 million from the federal government and $3 million from the provincial government. This is on top of a previously announced $22 million under the federal government's National Housing Co-Investment Fund.

Funding for the project is being delivered from the Social Infrastructure Fund, the Investment in Affordable Housing Agreementand the Ontario Priorities Housing Initiative.

The federal government is also investing $358,037 for the development of the four units in Kingsville that will be for youth with intellectual disabilities. The provincial government is contributing $168,488 to thatproject.