OTTAWA, ONTARIO – November 6, 2026 – United Way Centraide Canada welcomes the significant new investments in Masters of our Destiny: Budget 2026 aimed at strengthening housing and homelessness responses, improving income security, and expanding community-based mental health facilities across Canada.
Several measures respond directly to priorities advanced by United Way Centraide Canada and the broader United Way Centraide network. They align with our calls for systemic action to strengthen income security, invest in homelessness prevention and housing assistance, and advance poverty-reduction, including through long-term federal action on homelessness, renewed housing supports, and measures to reduce financial anxiety for individuals and families.
Budget 2026 proposes $44.7 billion over 11 years, on a cash basis, with the aim of putting Canada on a path to end homelessness within 10 years, expand non-market housing, and build a housing system that works for all. The budget also renews Reaching Home and the Canada Housing Benefit for 10 years and introduces an Integrated Supports Fund through Build Canada Homes to support building projects that connect housing with health, mental health, addictions, and social supports.
United Way Centraide Canada also welcomes measures designed to ease financial anxiety and put more money into people’s pockets. These include a one-time 50 per cent increase to the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit for the 2026–27 benefit year, delivered in early 2027; a fully refundable Canada Caregiver Credit worth up to $1,260 annually in 2027; and the introduction of the Build Canada Workers Benefit which expected to help lift an estimated 240,000 people out of poverty.
Stronger outreach to broaden automatic tax filing could also help an estimated 150,000 more Canadians receive benefits to which they are entitled. Income supports are most effective when people can understand and access them. Long-term financial literacy supports, together with sustained investment in 211 as essential service-navigation infrastructure and a source of real-time community data, can further help people find available benefits and connect with local services before financial hardship escalates. Together, these measures can help reduce financial anxiety and improve stability for people facing rising costs.
“Budget 2026 includes important measures that respond to priorities at the heart of our pre-budget advocacy: sustained investment in housing and action to address the growing financial anxiety and stress experienced by Canadians,” said Dan Clement, president and CEO, United Way Centraide Canada. “The top-up to the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit, the 10-year renewal of Reaching Home and the Canada Housing Benefit and Build Canada Homes’ new Integrated Supports Fund are welcome steps. By bringing housing together with health, mental health, addictions, and social supports, like the Dunn House model co-founded by United Way Greater Toronto, these investments can help create stronger pathways to stability. The United Way Centraide Movement will continue working with government and partners to strengthen affordability and address housing and homelessness.”
The budget further invests $2 billion to build community mental health and addictions facilities through the Health Infrastructure Fund, alongside $1.2 billion in 2027–28 to extend agreements with provinces and territories for mental health and addictions services and home and community care. These investments can help communities provide support earlier, before people reach a crisis point.
United Way Centraide Canada is ready to answer the call to further activate philanthropy and the not-for-profit sector in the collective effort to end homelessness within 10 years. Renewed federal housing programs, affordable and supportive housing investments, and integrated community supports are essential to preventing and ending homelessness in communities across Canada.
“United Way Centraide Canada looks forward to working with our network, partners and government to ensure these investments deliver for communities across the country,” adds Dan Clement. “We will also continue collaborating with partners to advance proposals to further strengthen Canada’s social safety net that are informed by the United Way Centraide network’s on the ground expertise. Stronger income supports, housing investments and accessible community-based services are the enabling infrastructure of Canada’s economic productivity that set us up for collective success today and into the future.”
About United Way Centraide Canada
United Way Centraide Canada is the national office that represents and supports a network of United Way Centraides serving 5,000 communities across Canada. United Way Centraide is Canada’s largest non-government funder of human and community services, mobilizing over $600 million annually to support basic needs to over 8 million people. United Way Centraides exist locally to serve those experiencing vulnerability in our communities and to create an equitable future for all. They work in partnership with more than 3,800 unique community service organizations delivering essential services so that everyone in every community can have the opportunity to reach their full potential.
FOR MEDIA INQUIRIES:
Erika Jacinto
National Director, Communications
ejacinto@unitedway.ca
