A University of British Columbia think tank has put forward a four-part set of solutions to Canada’s crisis of housing affordability and tenants’ risk of eviction. Strong rent control is a key plank. The recommendations from the Balanced Supply of Housing group would remove almost all exemptions that allow landlords to get around controls on rents. Proposals specifically aim to restrain financial investors whose practice is to buy buildings with relatively affordable rents, evict sitting tenants and sharply increase rents for new tenants.
Other proposals include providing adequate rent subsidies, creating rent registries, increasing Indigenous participation in housing decisions, constraining not-in-my-backyard opposition to new housing, providing consistent funding for upgrades and operations for existing non-profit affordable housing, and implementing land value taxes that tax unearned increases in land values. The report can be found here.