I’m standing outside the Central Police Precinct in downtown Portland, Oregon. Officer Eli Arnold and I have bicycled over to meet two of his colleagues, returned from a drug bust. We examine the proceeds of the crime on the hood of a squad car. The officers weigh the fentanyl powder on a small scale, record the amounts, and take out a few bags of pills to show me. A pill falls to the ground; one of the officers rushes to return it to the bag.
Vacant property occupations are on the rise, and it’s not just the jobless who are making the desperate move
Polo is no ordinary squatter. The builder, 32, enters empty properties and changes the locks, but then he pays the utility bills, renovates and even installs solar panels.
Once the preserve of society’s poorest, now even those holding down jobs are turning to squatting amid skyrocketing rents and high property prices.
The number of people turning to squatting and “unconventional accommodation” has risen by 25pc in the past decade, according to homelessness charity Crisis.
Link fixed
New data from the world’s largest central bank serves a reminder of just how batsh*t crazy Canada’s real estate bubble is. Housing bubble experts from the US Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (Dallas Fed) released its latest update of global home prices in Q3 2023. Most G7 countries moved in a similar fashion, rising with 2020 rate cuts and have shown recent moderation. However, zooming out reveals Canada’s real estate bubble is nothing like any other G7 country. It puts the peaks seen in US and Japanese bubbles to shame, predating its recent population boom narrative.
Canada’s wildly high rates of immigration that have made it practically impossible to raise a family in Canada unless you’re rich
One of the most vexing questions that inevitably arises in any close scrutiny of the factors contributing to the dramatically worsening standard of living in Canada is whether the causes are a function of decisions the Trudeau Liberals made deliberately, or whether it’s all been a series of catastrophic mistakes.
Either way, this can’t go on.
Trudeau and or his handlers using Junior as a front deliberately inflicted this horror on Canadians. Prove me wrong.
The GTA saw a slight increase in housing starts, driven largely by condos, but only because of a lag in the impact of interest rates locally, according to the latest figures from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
“We’re just not seeing the supply built that we need,” said economist Mike Moffatt, blaming higher interest rates and a weak economy. “And it’s a real problem.”
Actual annual housing starts were down seven per cent across the country in 2023 compared to 2022, to 223,513, but were up five per cent in the GTA to 47,428.
Tired of stepping over needles and human waste, and navigating around half-conscious addicts and homeless encampments? You’re not alone. Most decent, hardworking people want clean sidewalks for getting to work and walking their children to school.
Yet cities are legally barred from cleaning up homeless encampments. Advocates went to court and won rulings, guaranteeing homeless people almost unfettered freedom to set up tents and live in the rough, your health and safety be damned.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is now stepping into the immigration numbers debate, with a proposal to tie the number of newcomers welcomed to Canada with the ability of housing and infrastructure to support them.
It’s a conversation that needs to be had, because right now communities all across Canada are struggling to serve the needs of both their current population base and the needs of newcomers.
For months now, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller has been warning provinces that if they don’t rein in the boom in foreign students, Ottawa will have to do something. By provinces, he really means Ontario, the irresponsible actor that has blown up the system for the whole country.
Yet there’s been no word from Ontario Premier Doug Ford on whether he has any plans to fix the problem. So far, his government has done almost nothing.
The Trudeau government was warned that their rapid push for higher and higher immigration numbers was having a negative impact on housing and health care across the country. A presentation to the government in 2022 warned of the problems but rather than rethinking or adjusting their policy they pushed ahead.
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.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland made a stop Thursday in Toronto’s Canary Landing, a new rental community just east of the city’s downtown, to discuss the government’s new housing plans. But a question about recent warnings concerning immigration levels and housing supply elicited a less than satisfactory response.
Filthy liar.
Chrystia Freeland is asked why the Trudeau government didn’t lower immigration levels when it had been warned that housing levels could not keep up with immigration growth. pic.twitter.com/Itiz93CvRs
— True North (@TrueNorthCentre) January 11, 2024
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.
A Wall Street-backed corporate landlord snapped up hundreds of homes in Las Vegas in a mammoth one-off residential sale last summer.
Dallas-based Invitation Homes shelled out $98 million to buy 264 homes in Clark County, property records show.
The deal forms part of a $650 million swap of a portfolio of close to 1,900 single-family rental homes between billionaire Barry Sternlicht’s private equity fund Starwood Capital and Invitation Homes.
It was a combination of career burnout, watching their friends leave Toronto in droves, and knowing they’d never be able to afford a house that led Slawko Waschuk, 49, and Pedro José-Marcellino, 45, to move to Portugal.
Despite affordable rent at their Little Italy apartment – about $2,200 – they found themselves dreaming of home ownership while watching TikTok videos from MillennialMoron, an account that compares prices of run-down Toronto houses with literal European castles.
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
