Budget 2026 made a bold promise to end homelessness. Meeting it means sustained investment in the strategies and funding that advance housing outcomes for women and gender-diverse people.
The Women’s National Housing & Homelessness Network (WNHHN) welcomes Budget 2026’s proposed investments in supportive and transitional housing, non-market housing, and the renewal of Reaching Home along with the commitment to end homelessness in 10 years.
Budget 2026’s investments are steps in the right direction, but their success will depend on how well they address the distinct and intersecting homelessness pathways experienced by the most vulnerable members of our society. Years of WNHHN’s research has clearly indicated that housing insecurity among women and gender-diverse people is shaped by gender-based violence, poverty, disability, racism, colonialism, immigration status, and caregiving responsibilities. Failing to adequately recognize these experiences will continue perpetuating significant gaps in capacity, service delivery, and access to permanent housing.
Federal housing and homelessness investments must be accompanied by gender-specific directives and allocations responsive to the unique needs of women and gender-diverse people experiencing homelessness and measurable accountability for equitable outcomes. Most importantly, the federal government must clearly establish gender-responsiveness as an expectation in funding agreements and intergovernmental arrangements that define provincial responsibilities for delivering housing-related supports and services.
1. Integrated Supports Fund and investments in supportive and transitional housing
WNHHN welcomes the proposed Integrated Supports Fund and additional investments in supportive and transitional housing through Build Canada Homes. WNHHN’s research clearly indicates that fragmented systems, inconsistent eligibility requirements, and gaps between housing, homelessness, and violence-against-women (VAW) services can prevent people from accessing appropriate support.
These investments present an important opportunity to recognize organizations serving women and gender-diverse people as essential partners in developing and operating permanent affordable and supportive housing. This must include accessible pre-development capacity building funding, technical assistance, and flexible financing to enable smaller community-based and Indigenous-led organizations serving women and gender-diverse people to participate.
Federal funding agreements should also establish a clear funding framework on gender-specific allocations along with consistent, long-term provincial and territorial operating funding, to ensure housing remains financially sustainable and accessible across low-barrier, gender-responsive, and culturally appropriate models.
2. Build Canada Homes and expanding the non-market housing sector
WNHHN welcomes the proposed additional $13 billion investment to expand Build Canada Homes’ capital and accelerate the development of non-market housing, including the commitment to deliver 200,000 new homes over the next decade. We also welcome the commitment to dedicate at least 10% of Build Canada Homes’ expanded funding envelope to Indigenous housing through a distinctions-based approach.
However, achieving equitable outcomes, particularly for women, gender-diverse people and their families will require deliberate efforts to build the capacity of organizations serving women and gender-diverse people to participate in the development, ownership, and operation of non-market housing.
Organizations working in the VAW, homelessness, and community services sectors have developed significant expertise in supporting women, gender-diverse people, and their families experiencing complex housing barriers. Yet, these organizations have historically been resourced primarily to deliver emergency shelter, crisis intervention, and temporary or transitional housing, rather than to develop and operate permanent affordable housing.
There is a critical opportunity to shift this model. Build Canada Homes should provide dedicated pre-development funding, capacity-building support, and accessible financing pathways that recognize the operating realities of organizations serving women and gender-diverse people. Investments must support diverse permanent housing models, including supportive and independent living, housing for women-led families, and accessible housing for people with disabilities and ongoing support needs.
There is a critical need for investments in Indigenous housing to also demonstrate gender-responsiveness, supporting Indigenous-led, culturally grounded, and community-controlled housing for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis women, girls, Two-Spirit, trans, and gender-diverse people.
Build Canada Homes must not only increase the supply of non-market housing, but expand who has the resources, capacity, and decision-making power to develop and operate it.
3. Renewing Reaching Home: Addressing gender gaps in homelessness funding and data
WNHHN welcomes the proposed renewal of Reaching Home and recognizes the importance of sustained federal investment in community-led homelessness prevention and response. However, the next iteration of Reaching Home must address longstanding gaps in how homelessness among women and gender-diverse people is defined, measured, funded, and addressed.
The renewed Reaching Home program must establish dedicated, gender-specific funding allocations for women and gender-diverse people experiencing homelessness. Without dedicated funding, homelessness responses risk perpetuating gender neutral approaches that fail to address the specific needs of women and gender-diverse people and can place them at greater risk of violence and trauma.
Alongside more equitable funding, improved data collection is essential to informing more responsive policies and programs. Current approaches to homelessness enumeration and shelter data do not provide a complete picture of women’s and gender-diverse people’s experiences. In particular, the exclusion or underrepresentation of VAW shelters and transitional housing in homelessness data creates significant gaps in understanding how women and gender-diverse people experience homelessness and move between these service systems.
Reaching Home should establish consistent, intersectional and gender-disaggregated data collection requirements along with distinct targets, expectations, and reporting requirements for women and gender-diverse people.
4. A gender-responsive National Housing Strategy and a stronger federal commitment to the right to housing
Across these investments, WNHHN emphasizes that the federal government must address the systemic invisibility of women and gender-diverse people within housing and homelessness policy. When their experiences are not adequately reflected in data, funding frameworks, and program design, federal investments risk missing those who face some of the greatest barriers to securing safe, stable, and affordable housing.
The next iteration of the National Housing Strategy, alongside the development of Build Canada Homes, presents an important opportunity to address these gaps. Housing policy must move beyond one-size-fits-all approaches and recognize the distinct pathways through which women and gender-diverse people experience housing insecurity. This includes the impacts of gender-based violence, disability, poverty, racial discrimination, immigration status, and colonialism, as well as the specific housing needs of women-led families, Indigenous women and Two-Spirit people, seniors, and people requiring ongoing supports.
WNHHN calls for the new National Housing Strategy to uphold housing as a human right by prioritizing those in greatest need and embedding gender-responsive and intersectional analysis through clear implementation requirements, measurable targets, and accountability mechanisms.
WNHHN welcomes the significant investments proposed in Budget 2026 and emphasizes that the scale of investment must be matched by an equally ambitious commitment to addressing the systemic inequities that shape who can access housing, who receives support, and who is ultimately left behind.
WNHHN looks forward to continuing to work with federal departments, agencies, elected officials, and community partners to ensure that these investments translate into equitable and measurable housing outcomes for women and gender-diverse people across Canada.