Jennifer Wallace

Tuesday’s federal budget talks about “generational investments” and “supercharging housing construction.” But there just isn’t the right scale in its measures and investments to seriously tackle Canada’s housing affordability crisis. The budget increases investments in growing the supply of houses to $5.8 billion, up from $4 billion in 2023-4. Even if that was all poured … Read more

Bill 60, called the Fighting Delays, Build Faster Act, proposes to amend more than a dozen pieces of legislation, ostensibly to get more homes built. Schedule 12 of the act further weakens a number of tenant protections in the Residential Tenancies Act in ways that will make it easier to evict existing tenants, even those … Read more

A recent report shows young adults are increasingly unable to afford even rental housing on their own, never mind homeownership. The Housing Assessment Resource Tool report says that living alone has become a luxury many young adults can’t afford, so many are postponing forming households.  On average, people aged 25 to 34 earn about 25% … Read more

We lost about a half million affordable for-profit rental units in the decade to 2021, mostly as older apartment buildings were bought by big financial investors. Borrowing costs were low, rents were soaring and rent-control laws allowed landlords to raise rent by any amount if a tenancy ended, so it was highly profitable. Today, borrowing … Read more

The average rent for a vacant rental unit in Hamilton remains very high. Rentals.ca reports that the average for a one-bedroom unit in August was $1,790, and for a two-bedroom, $2,148. You’d need an income of $71,700 and $85 ,920 for those averages to be affordable (affordable means the rent is less than 30 per … Read more