OTTAWA — The Liberal government’s vision for tackling homelessness and easing the crunch in affordable housing deliberately focuses spending on building and finding homes for low-income Canadians, rather than putting cash into more shelter space, says the minister in charge of the file.
The idea behind the government’s plan — spending billions first to build up Canada’s stock of affordable housing, and later to provide direct benefits to tenants, rather than spending on shelters — is to ensure fewer Canadians remain or become homeless over time, Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said in an interview.
Such an approach will also help make private homes more affordable in markets like Vancouver by giving young Canadians, for example, more affordable rental options where few currently exist, Duclos added.
All of which is why the federal government sees the private sector as a key player in the housing strategy the Liberals unveiled Wednesday: governments and housing providers, Duclos said, can’t solve Canada’s affordable housing crisis by themselves.
“It’s through all of these measures that we think we’ll avoid having to depend so much on shelters and instead be able to provide homes for Canadians.”
The strategy’s focus on social, community and rental housing raised concerns from a youth advocacy group, Generation Squeeze, and two think tanks — the C.D. Howe Institute and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute — that the plan won’t ease affordability concerns in the hottest housing markets in the country.
Even though the plan makes reference to the study of further options, Duclos said he’s convinced the planned spending will cause a ripple effect in the price of housing across the country.
In places like Vancouver and Toronto, a lack of affordable rental options forces many to think their only option is home ownership, fuelling high and rising home prices, he said.
“When social housing is maintained, is grown and is modernized, it also means that pressures on the other segments of the housing continuum are decreased.”