Placing Strategic Partnerships at the Heart of Canadian Governance for Housing and Infrastructure Investments
How adopting new, collaborative approaches, across multiple orders of government, can support better coordinated and more comprehensive responses to Canada’s housing crisis
Housing crisis may improve for some in 2025
Perhaps the most frequently used phrase of 2024, across politicians, the media, pundits and consumers was “the housing affordability crisis”.
Opinion | Ontario mayors have a plan for homelessness that won’t work, but we know what will
In an opinion piece published in the Hamilton Spectator, Jim Dunn discusses how the Ontario government’s initiative will fail because they are trying to solve the wrong problem.
Jim Dunn Interview: GST rebate on new homes
Jim Dunn, interview on Newstalk 1010 Toronto with Jim Richards re: Pierre Poilievre proposal on GST rebate on new homes up to $1 million.
Project launch: Transforming the Housing System in Scotland
The David Hume Institute launched new programme of work on Thursday 19th September with Professor Duncan Maclennan to look at the actions needed to transform the housing system in Scotland. The work will look at the actions needed in the whole system from...
The 3rd Regional Housing Forum 2024
CHEC Director Prof. Jim Dunn was a featured speaker on a panel at a regional housing conference in Mexico on July 25. Hear some of Jim’s takeaways about how nations in the southern hemisphere are coping with their own housing crisis....
Hamilton Community Foundation
CHEC Director Dr. Jim Dunn and Exec Advisor Professor Steve Pomeroy were with the Hamilton Community Foundation in Montreal this week learning innovative approaches and best practices for creating, retaining and maintaining affordable housing. View video.
Report to HUMA Committee on Federal Housing Investments
Brief prepared for the committee by Steve Pomeroy, Industry Professor, McMaster University Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC), June 10, 2024 The study that the committee has initiated is important and necessary to ensure that in monitoring the impact of...
Making it with Mailchimp
If you missed our webinar "Making it with Mailchimp", you can watch the recording here! This webinar covers what you need to know to make compelling and engaging emails, including: Choosing a monthly subscription plan Building an email campaign Ways to boost...
Art gets to heart of homelessness
Art is increasingly being used to give people who have experienced homelessness a voice to inform practice and policy, participants in an Expert Community on Housing (ECOH) webinar heard. The May 2 webinar was presented by researchers in the Aging in the Right Place...
3D printing could be a housing fix
Canada is on the cusp of a great leap in the use of 3D printing for housing, growing from a seed planted in a four-unit Leamington affordable housing project finished in 2022. Based on knowledge gained from that first-in-Canada effort, the industry is preparing to...
Northern housing forgotten in federal budget
The Liberal government’s recent budget focused almost entirely on southern Canada with little for the housing crisis in northern Canada, says Julia Christensen, Project Director for the At Home in the North housing research node. In an April 17 interview on CBC’s “The...
Lack of funding for affordable housing, low income earners in federal budget: advocates and experts say
Housing advocates and experts surveyed for their thoughts on the “Housing Budget” announced by the federal government April 12 mostly agreed this budget is good for housing, but does little for homelessness. Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC) Adjunct...
Feds finishing consultation on wartime-inspired housing catalogue
The federal government has received more than 75 written submissions from stakeholders since January on how to design and deliver a standardized design catalogue to speed housing construction.
Canadian Housing Survey a treasure trove for researchers
Where can researchers find data on housing topics in Canada such as the amount of social housing, affordability, or the reasons for evictions?
Homelessness disproportionately impacts racialized communities
Black people are over-represented in homeless counts in Canada but the details of who, where and why are clouded by a lack of data, a webinar audience was told.
Housing Accelerator Fund: No supply surge soon
By the end of January, the federal government had announced about $3 billion in grants from its $4 billion Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) to fuel housing construction.
Rethinking Canada’s Target for 5.8 Million New Homes by 2030
Politicians and the public alike hit the panic button when CMHC said in 2022 that 5.8 million new homes were needed by 2030 to bring the price of housing back to affordable levels.
Lessons from Finland in saving Canada from “moral failure”
Canada should take notes from Finland’s Housing First approach to end homelessness.
Hamilton has a plan to keep homes affordable. Time for the feds and province to do their part
A provincial vacancy control policy would eliminate the economic incentive to end tenancies, and virtually end predatory eviction across the province.
Ontario’s rental subsidy can vary by hundreds of dollars, depending on your municipality
“They’ve decentralized this whole thing, and it’s a complete dog’s breakfast,” Steve Pomeroy said, speaking of the difficulty of finding out what each municipality is doing with the benefit.
More housing research needed to solve crisis
Canada badly needs more housing research, and more housing researchers, to grapple with the housing crisis facing the country, says Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC) Director Jim Dunn.
Fall economic update scores poorly on housing
If the federal government’s recent economic update regarding housing was a term paper, CHEC’s senior academic researchers would barely give it a passing grade.
Study reveals stark loss of affordable housing in Ottawa
For every affordable housing unit built in Ottawa, 31 are being lost due to rising units, renovations and demolition, a recent study has found.
A 360 Look at the Housing Crisis
For over 40 years, Steve Pomeroy has been teaching, advising and consulting on Housing and Homelessness across Canada.
Parliamentary committee makes financialization recommendations: CHEC-CHRN experts highlighted
Researchers represented by the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC) played a major role in the recent parliamentary committee report on the financialization of housing.
Filling the hole in the bucket: Loss of existing affordable rentals massively undermining new affordable supply
Steve Pomeroy Industry Professor, McMaster University, Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC) At a national level Canada is losing eleven lower rent affordable homes for every one home added (at considerable subsidy cost) under federal and...
Why N.S. could be losing some of the affordable housing it’s funded
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/could-lose-affordable-housing-units-funded-last-16-years-1.6978404
The Secret to Real Affordability? Trust in Land
Penny Gurstein, a professor emeritus of planning at the University of British Columbia, talks about the community land trust model, a non-profit that provides affordable housing in a variety of ways.
Home sharing: a win-win for students and older adults
Home sharing is a quick way to address housing shortages, particularly for vulnerable groups like international students and low-income earners who look for similar rental accommodation.
North’s housing crisis set ablaze by wildfires
Before wildfires ravaged the countryside this summer, throwing communication and transportation into chaos, Canada’s north was already a housing catastrophe.
Tenants create co-op when landlord puts building up for sale
If you live in a rental apartment building, form a tenant association as soon as possible.
Stark Truths on northern Indigenous housing
The National Right to Housing Network released a new report in August called Stark Truths, highlighting the state of housing-related human rights violations in remote and northern Indigenous communities.
An answer to the housing crisis could be lurking in an empty office building
A recent report from the Canadian Urban Institute says there is the potential to create up to 22,000 housing units in just 11 Canadian cities through office conversions while making downtown districts “vibrant, equitable, livable, and resilient.”
Summary of Can they Build or Not? Nonprofit Housing Development in an Era of Government Re-Engagement
A study of the experiences of non-profit organizations in building affordable rental housing in Canada has revealed a broken system badly in need of reform.
Individual investors more to blame for housing evictions, price escalation than REITs: Pomeroy
Summary of brief submitted to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities (HUMA) regarding the financialization of housing.By Steve Pomeroy, Industry Professor and Executive...
Filling housing’s “missing middle”
Researchers in the Balanced Supply of Housing Node are working on several projects to make it easier to build housing suitable for the so-called “Missing Middle.”
“It’s the difference between barely making it and not making it at all”: Housing as a human right, neoliberalism, and the new Canada Housing Benefit
Research by the People, Places, Policies and Prospects node has found a clear misalignment in Nova Scotia between a rights-based approach to housing and the experiences of tenants in receipt of demand-side housing assistance, particularly those receiving the new Canada Housing Benefit (CHB) allowance.
HART launches housing research tools
The Housing Assessment Resource Tools (HART) project has been officially launched on its journey to provide data-based solutions to Canada’s housing crisis.
Time for the federal government to put its money where its mouth is on affordable housing
With the federal government under pressure to practice austerity with the release of its budget on March 28, now is the time to draw on its existing $4-billion Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) announced in Budget 2022 to address the growing housing affordability issue, without adding new spending.
Canada failing to advance right to housing: homelessness advocate
Canada will never be able to solve its homelessness problem unless it listens to people who have lived experience of being unhoused or without the option of choosing where to live.
Professor reveals mortgage-stressed communities
Want to know the most mortgage-stressed major community in Canada? How about which neighbourhood sleeps the best because most people’s mortgages are in the rear window?
Black History Month: Financialized landlords target racialized communities
Financialized landlords, like Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS), were responsible for 65 per cent of the real estate transactions involving multi-family units in Toronto from January 1995 through to December 2022, according to new data revealed by Toronto Metropolitan University Prof. Nemoy Lewis.
Rural homelessness is often “invisible”, under-acknowledged, and undercounted
When most people think of homelessness, they see someone in a doorway off a busy city street or curled up over the ventilation grate above a subway.
2022 summary report: Supportive housing services in Northern Ontario
A comprehensive inventory of housing services in Northern Ontario has found “systemic fragmentation and lack of coordination within Ontario’s health, support services and affordable housing sectors” for individuals experiencing homelessness and seniors in Northern Ontario.
Amputations among people experiencing homelessness rise dramatically
University of Alberta Prof. Damian Collins says the record-breaking rise in amputations among those experiencing homelessness in Alberta can only be solved by creating more social and affordable housing.
Study finds “high degree” of discrimination in rental market
A new study from the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights (CCHR) indicates that “racialized” newcomers face a “high degree of discrimination” in accessing housing in Toronto and it makes several recommendations to help the situation.
Statscan failed young Canadians by underestimating housing inflation
Amid all the talk of inflation these days, it’s easy to forget that a generation of young Canadians are shut out of home ownership in part because Statistics Canada failed to sound the alarm over rising housing prices decades ago.
Will increased supply improve affordability?
This week the Ontario government tabled proposed new legislation with its intent clearly articulated in its title — the More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022.
Updating Analysis on Erosion of Lower Rent Stock from 2021 Census
The loss of affordable housing in Canada is occurring at such a high rate that it will be impossible for current NHS initiatives to maintain, never mind expand, the net stock of low-rent units, research shows.
Media Release re: Violence Against Women during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Women experienced more frequent, and often more severe, violence during the pandemic, creating new challenges for violence against women services and their clients, a newly-released study has found.
Applying an Intersectional Lens to Older Persons Experiencing Homelessness
Five student researchers from the Aging in the Right Place (AIRP) Project came together recently to engage in a discussion on intersectionality, what it means, and how it can be applied to older persons experiencing homelessness (OPEH) or housing insecurity.
Housing in Budget 2022: lots of words, but very few homes
It’s very disappointing that for the third budget in a row this government has ignored the analysis and calls to address of the single most critical issue in the rental market – the substantial and ongoing erosion of existing moderate rent properties.
Non-Profit Perspectives on the Rights to Housing People Can Afford
Written by: Patricia Streich, Housing Consultant & Researcher Canada’s 2017 National Housing Strategy (NHS) declared that all Canadians have a right to housing: people deserve a place to live that they can afford with 30% of their incomes. Non-profit...
Rebutting the Debunkers
It seems that my article on the factors contributing to excessive home price increases has generated considerable debate – most notably by those who assert the problem is lack of supply. Unlike many other articles, I sought to use data and evidence to challenge this view.
Gender, Housing, and Violence: Intersecting Crises Requiring Action
Current housing-related programs and policies implemented across Canada do not consider gender in an appropriate and effective manner (gender-blind).
Understanding Women’s Housing Precarity: Before and Beyond the Pandemic
By: Brenda Parker, Catherine Leviten-Reid, and Isobel AraujoHow do national housing policies impact the lives of Canadians who need them most? The People, Policies, and Prospects research node investigates the outcomes of different housing policies and strategies...
Exploring causes of escalating home prices: Part 3, potential policy solutions
By Steve Pomeroy Over the recent years, many Canadian cities have seen significant inflation in home prices There are rising concerns about the ability of our young, first-time buyers to get onto the home ownership ladder. There is some debate as to whether this is a...
Exploring causes of escalating home prices: Part 2, demand issues
By Steve Pomeroy Over the recent years, many Canadian cities have seen significant inflation in home prices, raising concerns about the ability our young first-time buyers to get onto the home ownership ladder. There is some debate as to whether this is a result of a...
Exploring causes of escalating home prices: Part 1, supply issues
Over recent years, many Canadian cities have seen significant inflation in home prices, raising concerns about the ability of young first-time buyers to get onto the home ownership ladder.
What might the 2021 Census let us know about housing need and the progress under the National Housing Strategy?
Recently, almost everyone in Canada received the federal census document in our mail, and hopefully all did our civic duty to contribute to this important and comprehensive data set that informs much research and policy development.
Reconciliation and Restoration
Reconciliation…Buzz word? Action? A destination? What makes it one or the other? It’s a place on the map called home.
Much to Do and Much to Learn
We are at the beginning of our journey with truth and reconciliation. As part of this journey, we are co-creating an environment where Indigenous leaders and stakeholders can come together to identify what The City’s role should be in the delivery of affordable housing for Indigenous Calgarians.