'Significant deficiencies' with public housing keep units vacant, auditor general finds

The New Brunswick Housing Corporation does not have systems or practices in place to ensure its 4,630 public housing units are well maintained, safe and habitable for tenants, according to a new report by the auditor general.

Paul Martin found "significant deficiencies," including incomplete inspections, untimely repair work and inadequate budget monitoring.

"The demand for affordable, safe housing is increasing in New Brunswick. It is crucial for the well-being of residents that public housing units offered meet appropriate safety requirements and are made available to those in need on a timely basis," he wrote in the report released Tuesday.

But delays in inspections and repairs left subsidized units sitting vacant for an average 140 days, instead of the maximum 30 days stipulated by policy. This, despite a waiting list of 13,129 households, during the review period from April 1, 2023, to Dec. 31, 2024.

It's "frustrating," Martin told reporters after tabling the first volume of the 2025 performance audit in the legislative assembly.

"We're in a situation where there's a need for housing and there are policies and expectations. … N.B. Housing is required to inspect vacancies within three days, fill them in 30 and we've got an average — now, average is not the worst — of four-and-half-plus months," he said.

Only four per cent of vacant units were ready for occupancy within the target 30 days, according to the report. Some took more than a year.

"There's obvious need to focus, determine what needs to be done for repairs, getting inspections done, getting people back in homes that are available but not ready for occupancy."

Key findings

Among some of his other key findings, 85 per cent of units did not meet annual interior inspection requirements, with half of the regions, or four, not conducting any annual inspections at all and two of the regions conducting them only for seniors' units.

Seventy-one per cent of repairs deemed "urgent" were not completed within the required 24 hours; and 36 per cent of all repair work for issues ranging from fire safety to mould and bed bugs did not achieve the target time for completion.

Martin pointed to a fire that destroyed Villa Beauséjour, a 10-unit seniors' public housing complex in the Edmundston region — one of the regions not conducting annual inspections, as required by policy. While the official cause was undetermined, some questioned whether it was electrical in nature, he said.

"Could that have been prevented if there was an inspection and something had been caught?"

In addition, the corporation's operational budget is not based on needs, and the budget was not available to spending approvers, making it impossible to monitor spending and to make resource allocation decisions, Martin said.

The New Brunswick Housing Corporation is the largest supplier of subsidized housing. The program is targeted at low-income individuals, many of whom would be considered vulnerable, he noted.

Glen Savoie, the interim Progressive Conservative leader, called the maintenance and repair findings shocking and disappointing.

"It's sad that it takes an AG bringing a report out like that to bring this to light," he told reporters.

The impact on wait times is particularly troubling, Savoie said.

"Obviously, that's unacceptable. These are vulnerable populations. They need housing. This is something that needs to be corrected. So obviously, you know, the government that's in power has a lot of work to do to get themselves ready to be able to address it."

Green Party Leader David Coon said he has heard about problems with units from his constituents in Fredericton Lincoln, and Martin's report shows those problems are provincewide, with gaps in maintenance "the size of the Grand Canyon."

"And that has huge implications for people's safety, for their security and their health," Coon said.

"It's really quite a scandal. We've got to think about it from the perspective of the tenants. These are their homes, the government is their landlord, and it's been behaving as a slumlord, as far as I can see."

Coon said he wished Martin "dug deeper" to see what's driving the problems.

"Is it a cultural problem in the organization responsible for maintenance? Is it a structural problem, the way they're organized is just not working? Is it a budgetary problem?"

He contends removing live-in superintendents as a cost-cutting measure years ago was a mistake and putting them back in buildings would be "a game changer."

'We will do better,' minister says

David Hickey, the minister responsible for the New Brunswick Housing Corporation and the Liberal MLA for Saint John Harbour, agreed the situation is "entirely unacceptable," and he promised "fundamental change."

"We will do better. We need to do better because for so many, getting into public housing is the opportunity that folks need to do more," he told reporters, noting he lives in a neighbourhood where getting into public housing is "treated like winning the lottery."

Public housing is supposed to mean having a safe, secure and affordable place to call home; a foundation in their lives, said Hickey. But the report shows even those who do get in continue to live in "substandard and sometimes unsafe" conditions, he said.

"To know that for many, many years New Brunswick has not been offering that to our own tenants, I think is really telling as to the crisis that we're in."

The province has "let the degradation of public housing happen over that time," Hickey said.

Public housing has been "chronically underfunded" for decades, no public housing has been built in the province for more than 30 years, and successive governments have done a "really poor job" of maintaining the units it has because $2 million in operational maintenance funding every year isn't enough.

That's why the Holt government is spending more than ever on public housing maintenance, with an 18.6 per cent increase this year, Hickey said.

He could not immediately say how much is projected for maintenance spending in 2025-26 but did say more workers will be hired, while some existing employees could receive additional training.

16 recommendations

Some of Martin's 16 recommendations are to improve inspection completion, vacancy turnaround times and overall maintenance program effectiveness.

"We aren't holding them accountable to anything that they aren't supposed to be doing [based on their own policies and regulations], but they're not achieving them — and not even close," Martin stressed to reporters.

"And some of these things will help fix their wait list, will help fix putting people in homes, making sure they're safe. I just, I believe it's a little bit of a no-brainer here that this needs to get done."

According to the report, the New Brunswick Housing Corporation agrees with all but one of the recommendations and has already completed some of them, with targeted implementation dates for the others ranging between this month and spring 2027.

The organization contends the best practice for exterior inspections is twice annually, rather than quarterly as recommended and required by policy.

"The policy will be reviewed for efficiency of current staffing levels and according to best practices," it said in its response.

Martin said his office will monitor the corporation's progress on the recommendations over the next four years to ensure it addresses the root problems instead of simply changing its policy timelines.

Of the 13,129 households on the waiting list for subsidized housing, 3,601 are listed as senior, 4,173 as family and 5,355 as non-elderly.

More than half — 6,775 households — have been on the list for two years or longer.