Reporting from Toronto where @moreneighboursto.bsky.social is hosting @housingnowto.bsky.social for an overview of affordable housing and how we can build more. Always a pleasure to see HART data in the wild 🏙️
Asking rents in Saskatoon are up 5.6% since last year, and incomes have only risen 3.1%. The communities that have historically thought themselves insulated from the housing crisis are steadily becoming more expensive. #housing #skpoli
Our upcoming BC Public Land Map is the most comprehensive, province-wide online map that can help communities and non-profits identify the best opportunities for affordable housing development. Be the first to see it: buff.ly/tTWBnhQ
@catch-rehac.bsky.social's new Equitable Transit-Oriented Affordable Housing (ETOAH) Playbook features several policy levers to leverage for cities seeking to develop ETOAH. One of these is Public Land Acquisition, identifying and acquiring land in advance of transit announcements. buff.ly/kHBvptn
Without increasing density, the city will see these trends continue unabated until Calgary becomes unaffordable for nurses, service, workers, and families.
The City of Calgary is poised to fully repeal the blanket upzoning brought in by the previous council. In the last census, there were 50k households in CHN. Rents went up nearly 20% between 22-23, and vacancy rates have declined since 2021. buff.ly/Cgo72Rd
Infrastructure servicing, amenity proximity, slope, disaster risk, housing yield potential — all in one place. Come join us at CHRA for the prototype. Full launch June 2026. For updates: buff.ly/1IYEQy7
We're heading to CHRA Congress in St. John's April 20-22 with a first look at the BC Public Land Map — the most comprehensive map of publicly-owned land in BC.
Well-insulated, climate-resilient buildings are cheaper to live in over their lifetime. They also don't need to be replaced after floods or other natural disasters. Removing sustainability standards just makes it more expensive for the people who end up living there.
The rationale is to reduce the costs of housing construction. But building poorly is not a sustainable solution.
The actual barriers to construction: restrictive zoning in low-rise neighbourhoods, sprawl-incentivizing planning frameworks, and policy instability, remain largely unaddressed.
Ontario's Bill 98 proposes to strip municipalities of the power to enforce local green building standards, including the Toronto Green Standard, one of the most effective municipal tools for reducing building emissions.
buff.ly/VFd8z6A #onpoli
Ontario's 2026 housing starts forecast just got revised down again. The Finance Minister says he's no longer focused on the 1.5 million homes target.
The province needs ~175,000 starts/year to hit it. They're projecting 64,800 this year.
globalnews.ca/news/1174737...
#onpoli #housing
The model matters here: federal dollars + provincial operating funding + non-profit delivery. Non-profits provide permanent affordability in a way the private market doesn't. Affordability, accountability, multi-lateral agreements. #housing #canpoli
New Brunswick just made the largest affordable housing investment in its history. $210M to build 1,200 non-profit homes over two years. Homelessness in the province has risen 210% since 2021 — this was desperately needed.
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If you use the HART tools and support ongoing funding for the work, please consider signing on to our letter of support: buff.ly/HYKYCMk
At least 73% of Canadian cities use HART to support community planning, reporting, and fundraising. The most important Canadian census in over a decade is being conducted this May, and our tools will be updated as soon as the data is released. 1/2
Hopefully Build Canada Homes takes note of the model, and also some of the projects that were ready to go.
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Housing is a long-term game. Hundreds of thousands of dollars go into projects before the shovels hit the dirt, and funding for non-profit housing is absolutely essential for both individual projects and the country's long-term interests (#housing crisis, anyone?).
💲Governments continue to allow it. People are evicted into homelessness regularly, and tenant protections are a policy decision that every province and territory can enact.
📜 There is almost no significant oversight of evictions across Canada which could track bad-faith actors or empower tenants to know their rights
🏘️ There's little enforcement when landlords act in bad faith and tenants rarely have the resources to fight back
Here is a practice in real estate where people buy affordable apartment buildings, where tenants have lived for years (and are subject to rent control), and they attempt to evict through any means possible, so they can charge more in rent to new tenants.
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They can do this because:
95% of BC's land is publicly owned — yet there's no system to turn it into housing. Our new report identifies the gaps and charts a path forward. Six practical recommendations. Real solutions. Read it here 👇
buff.ly/5XXWM2G
#bcpoli #urbanism #housing
💰️ Remarkably, CMHC makes the claim that rental affordability has decreased as a result of inflationary pressures, without acknowledging the financialization of housing at all, as if the ongoing narrative that housing should yield returns don't harm everyone in the system.
📉 Even more affordable markets like Montreal and Edmonton have seen significant deterioration of affordability since 2022.
🏘️ CMHC confirms that higher vacancy overall does not necessarily mean vacancy of affordable units, and lower income folks are less likely to experience relaxations in rent.
CMHC's new Housing Affordability Index is out, here's some key takeaways:
💲 It shows that any improvements that we've seen in rents and home costs over the last several months are not the return to affordability that some have claimed.
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Who is the city for? Our latest blog looks at how housing engagement processes consistently amplify the voices of those who already have secure housing — and sideline the people who need it most. 🏙️
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“The social acceptance of the Broadway Plan, and the pretty major redevelopment that’s going to happen as a result, depends on these policies working as they’re meant to work."
@ubchart.bsky.social Dr. Craig Jones comments on Vancouver’s Tenant Relocation and Protection Policy
CMHC's data tracking vacancy rates by rent quartile shows us what many renters experience: higher vacancy rates (and the falling rents that often accompany them) are concentrated in the most expensive units. That means that for the vast majority of people in need, there's no relief.
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Community note: this intersection is a 5 minute walk from a major skytrain station, a main street full of shops, restaurants, and community space, and a mall that would all significantly benefit from the additional residents.
Small, multi-family housing is an absolutely necessary salve to a painful and deepening crisis of housing and affordability. Some municipal governments regularly reject desperately needed housing in their communities because of a deeply lopsided community engagement model.
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