It took Karim and Joseph more than eight months to find a two-bedroom apartment to rent in downtown Toronto.
The high school friends, now 30 and 31 years old respectively, who did not want their last names published to avoid identifying their current landlord, started their search in July 2022. Joseph, the more experienced of the two, had already warned Karim of the “scope of how quick things happen.”
From Montreal to Vancouver, some residents are losing faith in a longstanding social safety net that is central to the country’s identity.
Canada has long prided itself on its social programs, meant to reduce poverty and equalize access to what are seen as core rights like health care, education, food and shelter. It spends hundreds of billions of dollars a year on social safety supports that are a major reason millions of people want to move to the northern nation.
But key parts of its safety net are fraying — in some cases badly. In 2013, Canada ranked 13th out of 170 countries in meeting the basic needs of citizens, according to data tracked by Social Progress Imperative. By 2023, it had fallen to 39th, in large part because of a lack of affordable housing.
Downtown Los Angeles has been described as ‘third world’ after shocking footage revealed a homeless encampment with open fires in the street and trash-covered sidewalks.
The startling video, posted to X by Fox News reporter Bill Melugin, shows dozens of homeless people sitting and standing on filthy sidewalks on the corner of San Pedro Street and 6th Street in the Skid Row neighborhood of LA.
Some are seen standing around an open fire in the street, just moments away from the Midnight Mission, a $17 million center for the homeless.
Good morning from downtown LA… pic.twitter.com/8vxnaD9moO
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) March 19, 2024
Canada’s skyrocketing cost of living has been an issue plaguing the Liberal government. Few things undercut support for a government more than citizens having trouble making ends meet, whether the government is responsible for it or not.
The Trudeau government has appeared to ignore the issue and remains fixated on carbon taxes, social justice, and overseas diplomacy. But when a person can’t pay the rent or afford groceries, policies in the name of climate change and conflicts in foreign nations become secondary concerns.
The astronomical cost of rentals in Canada these days has forced Canadians to resort to desperate measures amid the rising cost of living.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to social media to preview what lies ahead for the nation’s renters.
The federal government is calling on banks, credit bureaus, landlords and financial technology firms to include rent payments in credit scores in a bid to help Canadians secure better mortgage rates. But officials say they won’t yet enforce the practice, and one critic expects the move will have little impact on affordability.
… It’s a move that David Hulchanski, a housing expert at the University of Toronto, sees as relatively toothless. Along with the voluntary nature of implementation, he noted that credit scores were less pervasive of a barrier to homeownership than the sheer cost of homes today compared with income levels.
Dangerous tent cities were once a fact of life in Edmonton, but no longer. The reason why has to do with the provincial government, which, instead of sluggishly conducting consultations for years, decided to set cabinet on the problem and just fix it. It’s a welcome reminder that ministerial responsibility is alive and well.
It sometimes seems to me that Canada’s leaders may be suffering from nostalgia when it comes to addressing the housing crisis in Canada.
There was a time from our history when housing consisted of a modest cabin, built by hand, using logs hewn from a nearby stand of trees; lantern-lit and warmed by a crackling fire in the hearth; sitting in its wide expanse of grassland, its only connection to the outer world a rutted dirt road. A cozy, nostalgic image perhaps, but far from our current reality.
In 2018, teen brothers Hudson and Jackson Forsyth-Beck started growing veggies in the front yard of their rental home in Squamish, B.C., selling pickles.
That turned into a busy farm stand over the years.
But now, their family is facing eviction. Their father Robert Forsyth posted a video in a Facebook group appealing for help to find a home — and freezer space — to save about 10,000 pounds of produce, pies and preserves.
Looking out across the frozen forested wilderness, Peter Politis can see children playing on swings. In his mind’s eye, a group of twentysomethings gather around a barbecue; a young family stroll past pushing a pram.
These are not, he insisted, the delusional ravings of a lunatic. Politis, mayor of the Canadian town of Cochrane, Ontario, is a man with a plan.
More than two-thirds of Canadians are “overwhelmingly concerned” about the housing crisis and expect to see affordability and accessibility become worse this year, according to a new survey.
The poll from Abacus Data said that 68 percent of respondents were not optimistic that the country’s ongoing housing crisis would improve. Twenty-three percent believed housing issues would remain the same, while only 10 percent predicted improvement.
You might not know it based on the current crisis, but housing is a human right in Canada.
In 2019, the federal Liberal government enshrined the right to adequate housing in the National Housing Strategy Act. Canada is also a signatory to the U.N.-backed International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which recognizes housing as a human right in which parties must ensure the security of tenure for all citizens. Forced evictions are a prima facie violation of the covenant.
“The people are starving, Your Highness. They have no bread,” a French courtier is alleged to have said to Marie Antoinette. The queen’s reply (which she likely never uttered) was, “Then let them eat cake.”
Canada is facing a number of destabilizing forces like climate change, disinformation, and young adults never owning a home. That’s the take from an internal RCMP report called the Whole-Of-Government Five-Year Trends For Canada. The report is a “scanning exercise” on evolving risks for law enforcement to monitor. It puts the fact that many people under 35 will never own a home, on par with disinformation and climate change.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says the federal Liberal government will be annihilated unless it pauses its carbon price increase in April. That’s not totally correct.
If the Trudeau Liberal government is annihilated in the next election, on an economic matter, it will be on carbon pricing but also broader, continuing inflation worries. And also concern about Canada’s GDP slumping on a per capita basis. But mostly housing.
