The National Housing Council, appointed to advise the federal housing minister, has outlined what is needed for a comprehensive strategy to “fix a housing system that Canadians increasingly feel is working against them and rebuild the housing foundation that underpins Canada’s economic security.”
The Council reports that only the top fifth of renters can realistically afford to purchase a first owned-home, and only the top two fifths of renters can afford average asking rents. The rest are increasingly squeezed between rising housing costs and a rising cost of living.
We need a strategy on how to:
- Eliminate homelessness.
- Ensure housing costs are affordable for Canadians across the housing system and for every income level.
- Ensure all Canadians have an adequate home: improving habitability, security of tenure, access to services, location, appropriate size, accessibility and cultural adequacy.
Steps to get there
- Stop the losses of affordable housing: Since the introduction of the National Housing Strategy in 2017, Canada lost nine affordable homes for every one created. Hamilton has lost even more homes, whether apartment or other housing units, for each one built. Canadians need policies:
- To enable non‑profit housing providers to buy and permanently maintain for-profit housing that is affordable.
- Provide funding to keep existing non-profit and co-op housing affordable and in good repair and operating condition. At the moment, there is no plan beyond 2028.
- Reduce tenant turnover, since vacancies often allow landlords to substantially raise rents. The Council doesn’t specify how, but needed measures would include protection for tenants from eviction for non-essential renovations, compensation and guaranteed right to return at the old rent when renovations are done, and ending rent decontrol so rents don’t rise dramatically between tenancies
- Make significant and predictable investments in the non-profit and co-op housing sector. The Council has recommended immediate efforts to double the size of the non-market sector to reach the average for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries of 7 per cent of the housing system. Housing experts increasingly argue that we need to keep on funding and building until we reach 20 per cent. This funding needs to guaranteed to be ongoing for the long-term so housing providers can plan and build up capacity to build what is needed.
- Stop the losses of affordable housing: Since the introduction of the National Housing Strategy in 2017, Canada lost nine affordable homes for every one created. Hamilton has lost even more homes, whether apartment or other housing units, for each one built. Canadians need policies:
- Accountability and transparency. Set goals based for outcomes—for the amount of housing delivered that is affordable for different levels of income and on the decline in people experiencing homelessness. Then measure whether those outcomes are met and adjust programs and funding to do better.
- Transform the for-profit housing sector. Canada invests 7.7 per cent of its gross domestic product in housing, more than any Group of 7 country, and a significant part of that investment is speculative purchasing of existing properties, in hopes of a quick and profitable re-sale (“flipping”) or of evicting existing tenants and raising rents. We need to redirect that capital away from housing speculation and towards housing construction.
Read this short report here: https://nhc-cnl.ca/publications/post/charting-the-course-nhs2