3mo ago

Fifty years in the making of Ontario’s housing crisis – a timeline - Canadian Centre for Housing Rights

housingrightscanada.com

18 comments

It took a long time to get here. It'll take time to get out.
- It doesn't have to. But the CPC and LPC are setting low targets for production, so we shouldn't expect many units to be built. On top of that, neither are suggesting tax changes to discourage the financialization of housing.
  So it'll take a long time to get out, because there's little political will to change the current system.
  
  neither are suggesting tax changes to discourage the financialization of housing.
  This is the big one. You can build as many houses as you want and it won't help regular people if investors keep buying them all up.
I know how to solve it! Let's build a $100 billion tunnel and a luxury megaspa on public land! /s
- Don’t forget removing bike lanes!
  
  Bike lanes are driving up the cost of housing by making the city a nice place to live!! Rip em out!
IMO one of the really critical takeaways of this historical survey given the current climate is this: The claim that immigration has caused the crises is completely B.S. With the dynamics in place to drive the crises, increasing population can exacerbate the problem on the margins, but population growth didn't cause the problem and deportations won't fix it.
We need systemic fixes, like public development of purpose built affordable housing and regulation to prevent finalization of the human right to housing.
- I always explain it along the lines of "increased immigration didnt cause the housing crisis, it was just the final catalyst needed for people to notice it".
  Maybe the crisis had finally gone on long enough to be noticed or maybe people felt more comfortable now that had someone to blame but reality is this crisis has been decades in the making.
  The moment cities started ripping out street cars and bulldozing buildings to build parking lots was when the crisis officially began IMO.

18 comments