“Homelessness & Affordability Crisis”

It’s the bane of modern city living. Thousands of homeless people are setting up makeshift tent cities or sleeping in public parks. It’s not only unsightly; it’s dangerous both for residents and the homeless.

Housing was a hot topic long before federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre released his recent mini-documentary on the subject. Housing Hell has now been viewed by millions of Canadians, discussed by pundits, applauded as a master-class in political communications and derided as inaccurate and ignorant of how COVID-19 affected our economy.

But regardless of your position on Mr. Poilievre’s video, it nonetheless continues down the same problematic path such discussions always take. Specifically, it leaves out the people who build the vast majority of houses for Canadians: the private sector.

It has never been so unaffordable to own a home in Canada.

Rising ownership costs, including high mortgage rates and home prices, pushed RBC’s national aggregate housing affordability measure up 2.8% in Q3, to 62.5%.

The increase, which is outlined in a new report from Robert Hogue, Assistant Chief Economist at RBC, follows two consecutive quarters of decline, and has propelled the measure above the previous all-time high of 61.2% that was reached in Q3 2022.

WARMINGTON: Tent city in same neighbourhood as million dollar condos

No rent, no mortgage, no property taxes, no rules in Clarence Square Park homeless encampment

A walk through Clarence Square Park on Spadina — but a warning, it isn’t pretty. pic.twitter.com/ozBR6z3i51

— Joe Warmington (@joe_warmington) December 28, 2023

It is a staggeringly ambitious plan. Given the situation, it had to be.

When the economy started slumping in 2015, office vacancies in downtown Calgary began to climb. By 2020, the vacancy rate was sitting at over 30 per cent — about 14 million square feet of office space sat empty.

The value of office buildings in the city’s core had plummeted by more than two-thirds over that period, gutting the city’s property tax base and creating a revenue crisis at city hall.

Something had to be done.

Kris Wallace and Andy Ali of Vancouver say their search for a larger condo to give their family more room has been frustrating. Real estate and rental costs in the city are so high that their 26-year-old daughter is still living with them and they’re all feeling the squeeze.

A year ago, the federal government instituted a foreign buyer ban after passing the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act in 2022. The two-year ban, which came into effect on Jan. 1, barred non-citizens, non-permanent residents and foreign controlled companies from buying up Canadian property as an investment.

But Wallace says that ban didn’t do much for her family.

I bet these people voted for Trudeau.

A greater share of Canadians are barred from home ownership as affordability hits near-worst levels for most markets amid soaring prices and interest rates, according to a recent RBC report.

The significant loss of affordability during the pandemic has shrunk the pool of homebuyers in Canada, said Robert Hogue, RBC economist and report author. In 2019, close to 60 per cent of all households could afford to own at least a condo apartment based on their income. That share has plummeted to 45 per cent in 2023. And just 26 per cent can afford a single-family home, down from 40 per cent four years ago.

The federal government recently announced that it will accelerate housing construction by launching a “wartime” catalogue of pre-approved architectural designs for residential builders. However, industry experts have criticized the plan and argued that its impact will be negligible.