Dominion Housing Act 1935 The
Dominion Housing Act was passed in 1935 as Canada's first national housing policy. It included as part of "Canada's New Deal" put forward by Prime Minister
R. B. Bennett, who was facing an election with low support following his government's response to the
Great Depression. Taking inspiration from
President Roosevelt's
New Deal, Bennett proposed regulatory and
social safety net legislation. Despite demands for
affordable housing from social reformers, the DHA ended up setting the tone for all future housing legislation with the provision of loans for the wealthiest Canadians and promotion of homeownership and mortgage lending infrastructure. The DHA consisted of two parts: A total of 3,263 mortgage loans were administered through the
Dominion Housing Act from 1935 to 1938. Two years after the DHA was passed, the
Federal Home Improvement Plan was established and subsidized the interest rates on loans for housing rehabilitation to 66,900 homes.
National Housing Acts In 1938, the first
National Housing Act was passed by the
Parliament of Canada to replace and expand the scope of the
Dominion Housing Act of 1935. Replacement
National Housing Acts were later passed in 1944 and 1954. Major amendments to these acts occurred in 1948, 1949, 1956, 1964, 1969, 1973, 1985, 1999 and 2007.
Deputy Minister of Finance William Clifford Clark was the one to draft the
National Housing Acts of 1938 and 1944, as well as the
Dominion Housing Act. In 1945, the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (later renamed
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation) was created to administer the NHA. Amendments to the Act in 1948 introduced limited-dividend housing. In 1949, the
Act was again amended to provide joint federal-provincial funding to construct public, rent-geared-to-income housing; however, this was seen as a "tokenist" gesture and very few social housing units were built. The NHA of 1954 was largely similar to its predecessors in its objective to "maintain the private mortgage market". It was significant in replacing the existing joint-loan program with a mortgage-loan one. The 1964 amendments made provinces, municipalities or their agencies the sole owners of public housing, as previously public housing was jointly owned with CMHC. The 1973 amendments provided financial assistance for
new home buying, loans for
co-operative housing, and low interest loans for municipal and private non-profit housing. As such, the federal approach was shifted to low-income housing from "social," segregated public housing to "comprehensive" housing policy and included provisions for non-profit and co-operative housing. ==References==