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Building Up Simcoe County: Community blueprint for affordable housing, homelessness

December 4, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

Simcoe County council has approved and released its new 10-year affordable housing and homelessness prevention strategy, titled “Building Up Simcoe County – Our Community Blueprint for Affordable Housing and Homelessness Prevention.”

This aggressive strategy builds on the County’s previous strategy, which concluded in 2024, that created approximately 3,700 new affordable housing units.

“With this strategy, we’re committed to serving 20,996 households between 2025 and 2035 – including 5,081 through new housing units and subsidies, and 15,915 by addressing affordability gaps,” said Simcoe County Warden Basil Clarke. “This is an aggressive target, but it is one that we know that we can achieve through sustained investments from all levels of government and partnerships throughout our communities with municipalities, non-profits, and the private sector.”

Warden Clarke noted that by partnering with communities, residents of Simcoe County will continue to thrive, become stronger, and create places that people are proud to call home.

The new strategy focuses on three practical pillars: supply, people, and service system management.

This is a balanced approach that moves from targeting units created into housing targets.

It sets a ‘households housed’ target that combines results from both capital projects and operating programs.

It also includes a broader households served target, which includes households housed plus households supported through diversion and prevention initiatives.

This shift provides a more accurate measure of the County’s impact, and shows not only how many new homes are created or accessed, but also how many residents are able to remain stably housed.

The strategy’s three pillars include:

•  Increasing supply through new builds, modular bridge housing, secondary suites, and conversions.

•  Keeping people housed with prevention, rent supports, and repairs.

•  Managing the system with coordinated data, stronger partnerships, and transparent reporting.

To view the full strategy and to understand this new approach, visit simcoe.ca/ourahhps.

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