Balanced Supply of Housing

Community Housing Canada

at home in the north

people, places, policies, prospects

aging in the right place

Balanced Supply of Housing

Principal Investigator

Alex Flynn, University of British Columbia

Housing for Canada’s population has reached crisis proportions in many parts of the country, especially in major urban centres, with rampant homelessness and significant mismatches between the cost of housing and average incomes. We will help reduce these problems by convening a critical mass of interdisciplinary academics and multi-sectoral partners from throughout Canada’s housing sectors. Our Node will produce cutting-edge research and mobilize knowledge to support policy decision-making at all levels of government, including for the NHS, thereby bridging gaps between research evidence and housing outcomes.

Our examination of the balanced supply of housing will be guided by four overarching questions. Does the housing system have:

The right balance of housing tenures (i.e. rent, ownership, co-op, social, etc.)?
The right balance of built form and location (i.e. sub/urban, apartment, townhome, detached)?
The right balance of cost and type relative to local earnings (versus outside investment or short-term rental demand)?
What evidence is there that any current (im)balances in housing markets affect population health, demographic engagement and/or economic stability?

Our Node will integrate theoretical frames from health, indigenous studies, economics, and community planning and root these frameworks in feminist gender and community-based research principles. We will rely on a combination of methods informed by our various disciplines, including quantitative and spatial data analysis, econometric modeling, health in all policies analysis, qualitative and ethnographic methods of participatory action and field work, along with innovative public participation and design research methods. Our research questions and team are designed to both generate and mobilize knowledge through community research co-creation. Our knowledge mobilization activities will be guided by the Advocacy Coalition Framework, which has been implemented and refined by one of our lead community partners.

Our team will begin gaps analyses that explore the current housing supply — across tenure, built form, cost, and demand type — to assess current and future needs of res idents in major urban areas within BC, Ontario and Quebec, with the intention to extend to other provinces and smaller communities in subsequent years.

Our team will set up partnerships in the next year to explore land trusts or leases, purpose-built rental, more sustainable and appropriate secondary rental, co-ops, indigenous land tenure. social and supportive housing, public and non-profit housing, and community housing. We will begin to assemble an annotated database of policy options, which will be a living document that we update with future phases of the Node’s activity.

In light of rising prices in Canada’s most desirable cities, numerous policies have been enacted at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels to attack supply and demand forces deemed to cause high prices. Where feasible, we will assess the impacts of these policies by evaluating quasi-experiments and case studies stemming from policy changes that affect some but not all jurisdictions, or differences in policies/practices between like jurisdictions, so that we can deploy methods that isolate cause from correlation.

Central Coordinating Committee

Alex Flynn
Academic Co-chair
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC

Andrés Penaloza
Community Co-chair
B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association
Vancouver, BC

Knowledge Mobilization Committee

Julie Mah
Academic Co-chair
University of Toronto
Toronto, BC

Cheryll Case
Community Co-chair
CP Planning
Toronto, ON

Reshaping the Financialization of Housing Working Group

Alan Walks
Academic Co-chair
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON

Tom Davidoff
Academic Co-chair
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC

Victor Willis
Community Co-chair
Parkdale Activity – Recreation Centre
Toronto, ON

David Wachsmuth
Academic co-chair
McGill University
Montreal, QC

Innovating in Responsive Land Practices

Penny Gurstein
Academic Co-chair
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC

Nik Luka
Academic Co-chair
University of McGill
Montreal, QC

Nathan Lauster
Academic Co-chair
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC

Joshua Barndt
Community Co-chair
Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust
Toronto, ON

Adam Mongrain
Community Co-chair
Vivre en Ville
Montreal, QC

Organizations	Representative	Location
Aboriginal Housing Management Association	Nizar Laarif	West Vancouver, BC
Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario	Magda Barrera	Toronto, ON
Association for Generational Equity	Eric Swanson	Victoria, BC
British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association	Brian Clifford	Vancouver, BC
Evergreen	Isabel Cascante	Toronto, ON
Kensington Market Community Land Trust	Kevin Barret	Toronto, ON
Parkdale Activity – Recreation Centre (Toronto)	Victor Willis	Toronto, ON
Réseau québécois des OSBL d’habitation	Jacques Beaudoin	Montreal, QC
Ryerson City Building Institute	Claire Pfeiffer	Toronto, ON
The Neighbourhood Land Trust	Joshua Barndt	Toronto, ON
University of Waterloo	Ruth Knetchel	Waterloo, ON
Wellesley Institute	Greg Suttor	Toronto, ON
West Neighbourhood House	Lynne Woolcott	Toronto, ON

Name	Organization	Co-Investigator
Alan Walks	University of Toronto	Yes
Alex Schwartz	New School	No
Alexandra Flynn	University of British Columbia	Yes
Amy Khare	National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities	No
Andy Yan	Simon Fraser University	No
Erika Sagert	BC Non-Profit Housing Association	No
Cherise Burda	Ryerson City Building Institute	No
Cheryll Case	CP Planning	No
Claire Pfeiffer	Ryerson City Building	No
Cliff Grant	Aboriginal Housing Management Association	No
Craig Jones	Housing Research Collaborative	No
David Hulchanski	University of Toronto	No
David Ley	University of British Columbia	No
David Wachsmuth	McGill University	Yes
Elvin Wyly	University of British Columbia	No
Eric Swanson	GenSqueeze	No
Isabel Cascante	Evergreen	No
Jacques Beaudoin	Réseau Québécois des OSBL d’Habitation	No
Jean-Philippe Meloche	University of Montreal	Yes
Joshua Barndt	Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust	No
Joshua Gordon	Simon Fraser University	No
Kathleen Scanlon	London School of Economics	No
Kevin Barrett	Kensington Market Community Land Trust	No
Lu Han	University of Toronto	Yes
Lynne Woolcott	West Neighbourhood House	No
Magda Barrera	Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario	No
Maged Senbel	University of British Columbia	No
Marika Albert	BC Non-Profit Housing Association	No
Mark Joseph	Case Western Reserve University	No
Markus Moos	University of Waterloo	No
Martine August	University of Waterloo	Yes
Nathanael Lauster	University of British Columbia	Yes
Nicole Gurran	University of Sydney	No
Nik Luka	McGill University	Yes
Paul Kershaw	University of British Columbia	Yes
Penny Gurstein	Housing Research Collaborative	Yes
Scott Leon	Wellesley Institute	No
Sheryl Staub-French	University of British Columbia	No
Susannah Bunce	University of Toronto	Yes
Thomas Davidoff	University of British Columbia	Yes
Victor Willis	Parkdale Activity – Recreation Centre	No

Comparative Projects

Filling the Gaps in Housing: Tracking Legislative Responses to COVID-19 in Emergency Housing Initiatives

Principal Investigator: Alex Flynn (UBC)
Co-Investigators: Tom Davidoff (UBC), Penny Gurstein (UBC), Nik Luka (McGill), Alan Walks (U of T)
Research Themes: Reshaping the Financialization of Housing / Innovating in Responsive Land Practices
Funding Window: August 2020

Do higher home prices hurt or help child vulnerability? A multi-level study of home prices, earnings and Early Development Instrument (EDI) data across Canadian regions and provinces.

Principal Investigator: Paul Kershaw (UBC)
Co-Investigator: Magdalena Janus (McMaster), Eric Duku (McMaster), Nazeem Muhajarine (U Sask), Marni Brownell (U Manitoba), Martin Guhn (UBC), Barry Forer (UBC)
Research Theme: Reshaping the Financialization of Housing
Funding Window: August 2020

Assessing the Impact of Short-term Rentals on Canada’s Housing Supply

Principal Investigator: David Wachsmuth (McGill)
Research Theme: Reshaping the Financialization of Housing
Funding Window: August 2020

New Directions in Affordability-Focused Land Policy and Practice

Principal Investigator: Penny Gurstein (UBC)
Research Theme: Innovating in Responsive Land Practices
Funding Window: August 2020

Indigenizing Supportive Housing: The Dual Model of Housing Care.

Principal Investigator: Penny Gurstein (UBC)
Co-Investigators: Fran Hunt-Jinnouchi (ACEH)
Community Partner: Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness
Research Themes: Innovating in Responsive Land Practices
Funding Window: November 2020

Community-focused Projects

Partna Housing – Scattered Housing Trust Model Design

Principal Investigator: Cheryll Case (CP Planning)
Co-Investigators: Alan Walks (U of T), Susannah Bunce (U of T)
Research Themes: Reshaping the Financialization of Housing
Funding Window: August 2020

Expansion of Laneway Homes in Vancouver: household acceptance and builders’ choices

Principal Investigator: Tom Davidoff (UBC)
Co-Investigators: Tsur Somerville (UBC), Andrey Pavlov (SFU)
Research Themes: Innovating in Responsive Land Practices
Funding Window: August 2020

A Community Action Research Project on Tower Rentals in Parkdale

Principal Investigator: Joshua Barndt (NLT)
Co-Investigators: Martine August (Waterloo), Scott Leon (Wellesley Insitute)
BSH Community Partners: The Neighbourhood Land Trust, Parkdale People’s Economy / PARC
Research Themes: Innovating in Responsive Land Practices
Funding Window: August 2020

Community Capacity Building in Community Land Trusts for Affordable Housing: An Action Research Study of the Kensington Market Community Land Trust, Toronto

Principal Investigator: Susannah Bunce (U of T)
BSH Community Partners: Dominique Russell and Kevin Barrett, Kensington Market Community Land Trust
Research Themes: Innovating in Responsive Land Practices
Funding Window: August 2020

Studying Montreal’s financialization of multi-family rental housing: Spatiality, local specificity and empirical methodology