Housing shortfall, costs and affordability

[tomh009]

If we build public or co-op housing, the next conservative government will sell it off to their friends. No amount of legal protection is enough: just days past we watched Ford et al. launch trial balloons about weakening tenant protections to see what they can get away with.

We might build huge blocks of public flats, we might tinker superficially with taxes or funding for public or co-op housing, we might even give people free rent money. None of it will work in the long run if the money itself has, at the deepest, most obscure levels, leaks in value. Leaks that don't isolate people who want to profit and people who don't from one another.

Arguably that isolation is achievable. Many European countries have massive stocks of public housing, could be from 30% to more than 50% of the rental housing stock. (Singapore and Hong Kong are even higher.) These were mostly government-built originally, but many have been transferred to non-profit housing providers. However, the concept has survived for 100+ years through countless different governments.

Closer to home, Kitchener Housing provides a significant amount of affordable housing today. Providing funding to such organizations could significantly help the current situation, even if it will not solve it on its own.