This is grim:
Renters are twice as likely to spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing than homeowners, according to Statscan data released last year, and the agency has found single-person households broadly to be more likely than other household types to be living in unaffordable or unsuitable housing.
…
The report also found higher rates of “material deprivation” among renters and single-person households. Respondents were identified as materially deprived if they couldn’t afford at least two essentials from a list including unexpected expenses, spending money, small gifts, bills, maintaining a comfortable temperature in their home, transportation and more.
It’s something that’s on Joy Edwards’s mind. The 70-year-old has been living in the same Toronto apartment since the 1980s, when she got divorced. While her rent for a two-bedroom apartment is well below the Toronto average, it eats up 60 per cent of her monthly Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security payments.
Ms. Edwards said she was able to retire by minimizing her expenses and sometimes receiving some food from her church and a local community centre. But with developers expressing interest in her building, she said she worries “all the time” about being asked to leave.
Well do anything to solve the housing crisis, except build more homes.
Private equity firms should not be able to own houses. There’s homes, they’re being bought and scalped essentially. And since renting is so ludicrously profitable most buildings end up being rented out by these massive firms rather than sold.
There’s a bunch of stuff we could do that would make houses more affordable in addition to building homes. Our governments haven’t done those. That includes:
- Change tax laws so housing and property isn’t an attractive investment.
- Bring in a significant number of new immigrants to work in home construction.
- Train more people to work in home construction.
- Enforce rules around mortgage fraud and income verification.
- Enact useful money laundering laws that would prevent real estate from being used to launder money.
- Stop housing from being converted into short-term rentals (AirBnb&co).
- Discourage short-term rentals.
CMHC&co should be building affordable housing and selling/renting it at below market rates. But it’ll take decades for that to have an appreciable effect. In the meantime, there’s a bunch of regulatory changes that would make housing more affordable right now - the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, and other parties are barely talking about any of them (they have mentioned #3).
- Allowing cities to build more density and restricting urban sprawl. It may sound counter intuitive to restrict a bit of sprawl and SFH, but when applied properly those restrictions can help encourage upzoning and density in key areas.
The federal Liberals have tied some municipal funding to loosening zoning restrictions (I believe Fredericton is voting on the issue today), and the CPC proposed a similar policy before the election.
It’s one of those policies that relies on builders to construct affordable units in a timely manner, so I don’t expect it to have a significant impact on the housing crisis. Improving density is good for a bunch of reasons that we undoubtedly agree on, so it’s positive overall.
We could just be less weak with our policy and demand builders build a certain % of affordable units on certain plots. We could also start a real government supported affordable unit program. A big part of our housing issues fall on trusting developers to just build what we really need when we know they only build to maximize profits.
A housing allowance for everyone who makes under say 100000 a year fully paid for by taxes on non primary residence home owners
Tax the fucking rich and let the vast majority of people CHOOSE how they want to live.
Also this has significant reduction of crime and societal benefits as well as health benefits.
Think of everyone you have ever known or heard about that didn’t leave a bad situation because they didn’t know how they would afford a place to live. From domestic abuse, to homelessness and all the other situations.
Yes a few people will take advantage of this, but the vast majority of people will be lifted up. If done correctly where the money they earn from whatever job/career they have isn’t sacrificed so that they can go out into their communities and eat at restaurants, use services, hire professionals, actually go to your doctor, we will live in a much better society
Woo! We’re all in hell together now! /s
A new sitcom premise could be old people being roommates. Picture something like the big bang theory, or friends, but everyone is a senior.
I dont know if youre kidding or genuinely havent heard of the Golden Girls.
