Carney launches Budget 2026 plan to end homelessness within 10 years, starting with Manitoba partnership

Budget 2026 sets a goal of ending homelessness in Canada within 10 years, backed by nearly $30 billion. Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the first step on Nov. 6 with Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew and Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham: a partnership supported by more than $1 billion in new federal funding to build over 2,000 supportive and transitional homes in Winnipeg and a new Winnipeg Centre for Mental Health and Addictions.

The national plan brings together housing, ongoing supports and health care. The government says the homelessness crisis, which has deepened since the pandemic, involves more than shelter: people need safe, affordable homes and services such as mental health and addictions care. Those systems have operated separately and at a scale inadequate to the crisis. The budget’s approach has three parts: help, housing and health.

For community supports, the budget provides $6.5 billion to renew and strengthen the Reaching Home Initiative and support efforts to address homelessness among veterans. The funding backs community-led prevention, connections to shelter and essential services, employment support and help finding a permanent home. Communities will be expected to provide more consistent, timely data to measure the scale of homelessness and track progress. Another $5.5 billion will renew the Canada Housing Benefit, providing direct monthly rent assistance to low-income Canadians, including survivors of gender-based violence, to help them pay rent, keep their homes and avoid homelessness.

For housing, $10 billion through Build Canada Homes will support the delivery of about 25,000 supportive and transitional homes across Canada. The federal government will fund construction, while provinces and territories will pay for operations and the services residents need to remain housed. The investment will grow if more partners join.

For health care, the budget provides $5 billion through Build Canada Homes for a new Integrated Supports Fund. With public, private and philanthropic partners, it will support facilities that combine housing, health care, mental health and addictions treatment, and other social services. The model draws on Toronto’s Dunn House, where residents’ emergency department visits have been cut in half. A further $2 billion through the Build Communities Strong Fund’s Health Infrastructure Fund will build community mental health and addictions treatment facilities and refurbish existing ones.

Kinew and community and philanthropic partners brought forward the Winnipeg plan, and the federal government responded. Up to $800 million in federal funding will support more than 2,000 supportive and transitional homes for people experiencing homelessness or at risk of it. The City of Winnipeg and the Province of Manitoba will identify and provide public land. The province will operate the homes and provide the accompanying supports.

More than $200 million in federal funding, the first investment from the Integrated Supports Fund, will support construction of the Winnipeg Centre for Mental Health and Addictions. The centre will bring acute and outpatient mental health and addictions care together with permanent housing and co-ordinated support services, providing one front door to help, housing and health. Manitoba will cover half the construction cost, operate the centre and provide job training and income supports. Philanthropic partners will contribute from construction through operations. The centre is expected to be fully operational in as soon as three years.

Together with supportive and transitional housing already committed by Build Canada Homes in partnership with Manitoba, the projects mean up to 2,500 new homes in Winnipeg. The federal government described the partnership as a model for work elsewhere and said it would work with every willing partner.

Carney said no government can solve homelessness alone. He said the budget brings help, housing and health care together, drawing on lessons from front-line workers, and that the plan was being put into action in Winnipeg with an invitation to willing partners across Canada. Kinew said Manitoba was no longer willing to see community members living in tents. He described the province’s Your Way Home strategy as going tent to tent to offer housing and the wraparound supports people need to stay housed. He said the new funding would expand the province’s capacity to ensure everyone has a home and the mental health and addictions supports they need. Gillingham called it a once-in-a-generation investment that would change lives, saying federal, provincial, municipal and Indigenous governments must work with community and private-sector partners to address major challenges. He said Winnipeg was ready to help deliver the projects as quickly as possible.

Budget background information says Finance and National Revenue Minister François-Philippe Champagne tabled Budget 2026 in the House of Commons on Nov. 5, 2026. The budget’s housing strategy has three pillars. The first is nearly $30 billion to build supportive and transitional housing, bring housing and health care together, expand mental health and addictions treatment, and strengthen homelessness prevention and rental assistance, with the goal of ending homelessness within 10 years. The second is nearly $15 billion to triple annual non-market housing starts to 24,000, including by mobilizing investment, making better use of public land and increasing affordable housing supply through non-profit organizations, housing co-operatives and public agencies. The third is more than $750 million to make homes faster and cheaper to build by streamlining approvals and standardizing modern building methods. The federal government is already estimated to spend more than $100 billion on housing across Canada.

Homelessness has nearly doubled across Canada since 2018, with approximately 65,000 people experiencing it in 2025. In Winnipeg the previous year, 2,469 people were identified as experiencing homelessness on a given night. Among those surveyed, nearly 68 per cent were experiencing chronic homelessness, approximately 80 per cent identified as Indigenous, and nine in 10 reported at least one health condition or related challenge, including substance use and mental health issues.

Reaching Home supports community-led efforts to prevent and reduce homelessness, including chronic homelessness. It gives communities flexibility to address local priorities and supports distinctions-based approaches. The program helps communities across Canada collect and analyse homelessness data. This includes free Homeless Individuals and Families Information System software for real-time data, co-ordination of annual counts in more than 100 cities, and longitudinal studies of shelter use.

Toronto’s Dunn House, Canada’s first social medicine housing project, combines permanent supportive housing with on-site health and social supports. It has reported a 52 per cent reduction in emergency department visits, a 79 per cent reduction in residents’ hospital stay length, and $2.1 million in hospital savings in its first two years of operation.

Launched in September 2025, Build Canada Homes is the federal housing agency dedicated to accelerating affordable housing construction at scale. It brings together federal land, financing, investment and development expertise to build and enable affordable, supportive and transitional housing, working with non-profit, Indigenous, public and private partners.