Housing Assessment Resource Tools (HART)

Canada’s social housing deficit is a crisis hiding in plain sight Canada’s housing crisis is about the exclusion of deeply affordable, non-market housing in the national conversation. Read more.

Unlike basement and carriage suites, non-profit, social #housing, actually provides safe, secure, and affordable housing for people in perpetuity. With waitlists over 10 years long for non-profit/social housing, why not prioritize subsidies to this sector?
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When members of Ontario's municipal employee pension (one of the largest plans in Canada) retire, they will receive on average $33,769 annually, so even 2 pensioners could not afford a studio apartment from OMERS-backed Oxford Properties in Toronto. #onpoli #pensions

It remains one of the most baffling parts of the system that public pension plans invest in #housing that is not affordable to their members.
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Developers selected to build affordable housing on City-owned properties Plan your next trip on our new bus network

It's exciting to see cities like #Winnipeg taking city-owned land and turning it into housing. These projects include nearly 40% affordable, supportive units, and indigenous-led development. We'll be watching the public hearing process on this one 👀 buff.ly/x1eeQua

"For every month delayed, $70,000 in interest costs will be added to the project... but the true impacts will be felt most by the 74 people in need of housing who have had their hopes kicked down the road." - @jfatkey.bsky.social on #PoCo supportive housing.
#bcpoli
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Why the ‘build more homes’ mantra won’t cut it Canada’s housing crisis is more than a planning failure. It reflects misaligned demand-supply dynamics and a growing disconnect between wages and housing costs. Even the most efficient for-profit…

"Even the most efficient for-profit developers cannot house the lowest-income Canadians at truly affordable rents without public support. Doubling down on market supply without a smarter strategy will not deliver real affordability."

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According to CMHC's latest Social and Affordable Housing Survey, there are a paltry 600k homes available to over 40 million Canadians. Per capita, that looks like just under 0.015 homes per person. France has 482x more social #housing units/person. We need to build more social🏘️.
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Toronto has 6 months to meet terms of housing agreement with Ottawa, minister says | CBC News Toronto has six months to meet the terms of a housing agreement with Ottawa, the federal housing minister said — a deadline that comes as the city risks losing $30 million in federal housing funds.

If cities like Toronto continue to be held hostage by NIMBY attitudes, what hope do folks in smaller towns and cities have to see housing need meaningfully addressed? "Parking and privacy" were quoted as reasons - when did parking become more important than housing people? buff.ly/WgbEQBp

Thank you to ‪@ravikahlon.bsky.social‬ for your service to the BC's housing sector - we know you'll tackle Jobs with the same vigour as you approached housing. We congratulate and look forward to working closely with ‪@christineboyle.bsky.social‬ on this vital portfolio moving forward.

It's great to hear Minister @gregorrobertson.bsky.social address the need for non-market and co-op housing in addition to more housing overall. In his own words, it'll take 10yrs to get enough housing built, but the most vulnerable are desperate for affordability now.
From CBC:

I finally bought my first Toronto home after three years of looking. What happened next changed how I see the housing crisis The Star’s housing editor and her husband found the perfect house when they least expected it. After the deal closed, they weren’t the only ones facing a new reality.

"Any minor inconvenience of new neighbours is nothing compared to what it felt like to live in fear of being evicted at the whim of a property owner for their own use or for renovations... and to be vulnerable to a landlord who might not know or care about rental law"
www.thestar.com/real-estate/...

People keep arguing that falling prices would send the economy into crisis. Those people need to take a look around - we're already in crisis. With rising #housing precarity and #homelessness, it's time to prioritize shelter over speculation.
New blog: buff.ly/QaVWTLm

2025 Mid-Year Rental Market Update Discover how increased supply, shifting affordability and evolving vacancy rates are shaping Canada's rental market in 2025.

CMHC's latest Rental Market Update shows a mixed bag for renters:
👍 Advertised rents are⬇️ from Q1 2024.
👎 Advertised rents are still up to 44% more than occupied rents (more precarity).
💲 Rent-to-income ratios continue to deteriorate, suggesting more instability in the future.
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Notably, the people who would BENEFIT from these homes and services are effectively silenced through this process.
See HART research on how current models of community engagement hurt communities and examples of alternative models here: buff.ly/4e3plUP

Shelters vs. self-interest: How two ugly fights exposed Toronto’s housing hypocrisy The opposition to sixplexes and shelters in the suburban areas of Toronto show how nasty and selfish some areas of the city can be.

According to 100+ housing professionals, non-profit housing providers, and community groups in our research, existing neighbours have disproportionate power over housing and services development, effectively blocking 000s of necessary beds and homes.

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The quote that young Canadians "overwhelmingly want to buy a home" is not only inaccurate, but it fails to recognize that purchasing is currently the only way to achieve security of tenure. Without ample purpose-built rental options, Canadians won't be given a real choice.

In Vancouver, rental vacancy is *essentially zero*, and investors are rapidly purchasing condos and other housing to rent out because they can charge upwards of $1k PER ROOM.
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Is Canada building too many rental apartments? Douglas Todd: Unlike elsewhere, rents are going down in Canada as population growth eases. Still, gov'ts are subsidizing rental projects.

One thing this article fails to mention (glaringly), is that housing construction is a decades-long game, so just because immigration is slightly down this year, doesn't mean we shouldn't be building rental housing.
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In most metropolitan areas, asking rents have gone up by nearly $500 per month since 2019. Even if we are able to build enough housing in the next 10 years, we must tackle investor-driven rent inflation to alleviate #housing precarity across Canada.

For the first time, StatsCan is releasing quarterly data on asking rents, and this confirms that renters are not OK. In Vancouver, single rooms (not full apartments) are going for over $1,000 per month. In Montreal, we've seen asking rents increase by nearly 71%.

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📊 CMHC wants to double housing production to 430k-480k starts/year.
The math seems simple until you realize:
-We built 207K in 2022 under IDEAL conditions
-Interest rates were at historic lows
-Government investment was at record highs

Current conditions? Much tougher. Read more: buff.ly/NlARfFl

🚨 CMHC just moved the goalposts on housing affordability.

Their "success" target for 2035? Toronto families spending 59% of income on housing. Vancouver families spending 71%.

When did we decide that housing affordability was too ambitious?

Read the blog here: buff.ly/NlARfFl

According to the 2025 Canadian Renters report, 51% of renters are paying over 30% of their income on rent, and of the renters who don't plan on buying a property, half say it's because they don't think they could ever afford it.

Supply is absolutely vital - we have an enormous shortage of housing. But we ALSO need to focus on non-profit housing as a greater proportion of the stock we are building.

Why not both?🤷The graph you share here suggests greater vacancy rates are related to more affordability within Canada; the article also cites Canada's relative affordability to other nations with lower vacancy rates but cheaper housing (suggesting that the higher % of social housing is why)

The supply and demand myth of housing It is clear that supply and demand curves are not sufficient for understanding the housing crisis. We can build all we want, but if we are building houses as financial assets prices are going to stay…

"France is facing similar supply and demand pressures as Canada, but French homes cost substantially less." This article points to countries with similar vacancy rates and dramatically lower housing costs (spoiler: they have a LOT of social housing).

‘It’s like a punishment’: Renters’ golden years tarnished by BC Housing backlog | Globalnews.ca Thousands of seniors who have applied to the BC Housing Registry are waiting for homes amidst soaring need, scarce supply and silence.

It's also important to note that less than 15% of @BCHousing partners are on the registry. In order to navigate finding affordable, non-profit housing in BC, you also have to register for countless individual buildings, which may or may not require regular re-registration.

Without data on the rental market, we cannot measure or address the growing crisis we're seeing across Canada. If the Feds are serious about dealing with extreme housing precarity, they need to start with data about rents and evictions, and commit to building secure, safe, non-profit #housing.

‘We’re seeing desperation’: Tenant advocates brace for housing crisis around moving day With July 1 just weeks away, some housing advocates are sounding the alarm over what they call a deepening crisis.

“We’re seeing landlords managing to get long-term tenants out — sometimes by offering a few thousand dollars to leave, sometimes by threatening renovations that may or may not happen,” she said. “They know they can double or triple the rent if they turn the unit over.”

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How can we expand the supply of housing on public land in Canada? | Housing Assessment Resource Tools (HART) HART's new report provides solutions and recommendations for using public land for housing.

There are hundreds of solutions that the housing sector has come up with to increase housing and affordability on public lands in our "Workshops to Expand the Supply of Housing on Public Land in Canada" Report. Read it here: buff.ly/TeexhRU