In Canada, women and gender-diverse people are more likely to have trouble finding a safe and secure place to live, and disproportionately live in core housing need. For those who experience homelessness, they are often denied access to emergency shelters that are operating over capacity and are struggling to meet demand due to chronic underfunding and an increase in housing need. Additionally, certain policies, rules and practices in emergency shelters may lead to people being turned away, separated from their children or unable to access supports.   

These issues can have devastating impacts on women and gender-diverse persons who are in need of shelter services, and present barriers to realizing the right to housing. It is critical that we change the way that emergency shelters are designed so that they align with a rights-based and gender-sensitive approach to housing.

To help address these challenges, this project explored together with lived experts, advocates and shelter providers seeks to identify what shelters in Canada could look like if they were gender-sensitive and aligned with the right to housing. To transform emergency shelter service delivery for women and gender-diverse people, we developed and prototyped national shelter standards that use a rights-based and gender-sensitive approach. These standards can help to better meet the needs of women and gender-diverse people in accessing emergency shelter services.

The process

The development of these Shelter Standards has been a deeply collaborative effort, aiming to create a robust framework that addresses the complex unique challenges faced by women and gender-diverse individuals accessing emergency shelters across Canada. 

At each step of the development process, a diverse range of key actors, including people with lived experiences, service providers, human rights experts, and advocacy groups, were extensively engaged. This inclusive approach ensured that the standards reflected a comprehensive understanding of the genuine needs and dynamic realities faced by those accessing emergency shelters.

The results

These Shelter Standards are grounded in a comprehensive framework that merges international human rights principles with a Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) approach. By drawing from international treaties, human rights frameworks, and best practices, the standards aim to set a high bar for emergency shelter operations while remaining sensitive to the unique needs of diverse gender identities and expressions. 

The Standards aim to: 

• Increase access to supports and services for marginalized women and gender-diverse people who are being excluded by these systems;   
• Create alternatives to shelter policies and practices that deepen housing precarity for women and gender-diverse persons; and,   
• Prevent harm (including intergenerational harm) and rights violations linked to shelter policies and practices related to gender (e.g., transphobia). 
  

Review Panel Submission

These Shelters Standards will also become a joint submission to the upcoming National Housing Council’s review panel. On May 11th, 2023, the Federal Housing Advocate announced the second human rights-based review panel under the National Housing Strategy Act (NHSA) on the Government of Canada’s failure to prevent and eliminate homelessness amongst women and gender-diverse people, particularly those who are Indigenous. 

This review panel process will give people with lived experience of gender-based homelessness and housing precarity—as well as civil society allies—an opportunity to share their experiences and solutions and hold the Government accountable in a way that was not possible before.  

This will be the second human rights-based review panel conducted in Canada (the first of which is still ongoing on the issue of the financialization of purpose-built rental housing. These review panels are new oversight and human rights-based accountability mechanisms under Canada’s right-to-housing legislation, the National Housing Strategy Act of 2019. 

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Acknowledgements

This project is generously supported by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) Solutions Lab. 

We would also like to recognize the invaluable contributions of members of the National Advisory Committee of this project, and the many organizations and individuals that have lent their expertise and experience to the development of these standards.

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NATIONAL

• Federal government launches Co-operative Housing Development Program
  
  In early June, the federal government launched a $1.5 billion program to support the development of co-operative housing. The program was initially announced in the 2022 federal budget, with the goal of constructing over 6,000 new co-operative units. Co-operative housing is one of the few housing options that has historically provided long-term affordability outside the private market. The program is one of the most significant federal investments in non-market housing, following decades of underfunding. Co-operative housing providers will be able to apply for funding as of July 15, 2024.
  
  
• The Federal Housing Advocate sends new Annual Report to the Minister of Housing
  
  The Federal Housing Advocate’s annual report covers various key issues and actions its office undertook during 2023-2024, including the urgent need for non-market housing, financialization of housing and the harm it causes people in Canada, the right to housing of Indigenous people, and upholding the rights of people living in homeless encampments, among others. The Advocate made various recommendations on how the federal government can address these issues to realize the right to housing, such as by aligning the National Housing Strategy with the legislated purpose of the National Housing Strategy Act. The Advocate made it clear that the housing and homelessness situation in Canada has reached a crisis point and emphasized their role in listening to people on the front lines of the crisis and amplifying their voices to decision-makers.
  
  
• Federal committee studying the impact of investments on housing affordability and homelessness
  
  The Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities (HUMA) is currently undertaking a study on the current state of housing affordability and homelessness across Canada. The study will explore the impact of federal investments in purpose-built rental, affordable, social, rent-geared-to-income, and co-operative housing between February 2006 and October 2015. In response to the committee’s request for submissions from the public, the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC) submitted key data showing that 90 per cent of the homes built through federal investments between 2001 and 2016 were for home ownership, while minimal rental housing was built during this period, which has contributed to the current housing crisis. CHEC also highlighted the insufficient reporting on federal housing data and a lack of transparency since the mid-1990s, which has made it difficult to track the number of units built and households assisted during that time. To address these issues, CHEC’s submission recommended several measures to improve federal housing reporting and transparency. The Social Housing and Human Rights Campaign also delivered a series of recommendations to expand and maintain social housing. 
  
  

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ATLANTIC CANADA

New brunswick

• Renters’ rights group releases housing policy priorities ahead of provincial election
  
  ACORN New Brunswick has released its policy platform ahead of the upcoming provincial election. The platform lays out a series of housing policy priorities  with a focus on addressing the escalating housing crisis  including implementing permanent rent control, a rental registry, and increased funding for subsidized housing. The group is also calling for increased social assistance rates, as current recipients cannot afford the average rent for a one-bedroom unit. These policy proposals have been made in other parts of Canada, and implemented together, they can help alleviate the housing and homelessness crisis. The platform was released during a rally in Moncton held in early June, and was attended by members of the Green Party, Liberal Party, and NDP. The provincial election is currently scheduled for October 21, 2024.
  

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CENTRAL CANADA

ONTARIO

• City of London considering a renovictions bylaw
  
  London city council is currently considering a bylaw to tackle renovictions, a tactic that has been on the rise over the last few years across Ontario, wherein landlords evict renters paying below market rents under the guise of conducting renovations, only to rent their units to new renters at higher rates. If approved by council, the bylaw would require landlords who wish to use an eviction notice for renovations to obtain a $400 license from the city, which would require a qualified professional to confirm that the unit must be vacant in order to complete the renovations. Some councilors have also proposed steep fines for landlords who break these rules. London Property Management Association, the city’s largest organization of landlords, has come out against the draft bylaw, arguing that the provincial Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) already fully protects renters, and that they will pursue litigation based on an excess of jurisdiction if the bylaw is passed. However, renter advocates note that many renter protections under the RTA are not enforced, putting the onus on municipalities to provide more robust protections. Hamilton was the first city in Ontario to enact a renovictions bylaw and Toronto is currently developing its own, based on the Hamilton model. 
  
  
• Hamilton moves closer to implementing a ‘demovictions’ bylaw
  
  Hamilton city council is expected to pass a demovictions bylaw, which would further strengthen protections for renters included in its recently passed bylaw on renovictions. Demovictions occur when landlords evict renters from a building to demolish and redevelop it into new units. If passed, the Rental Housing Replacement By-law would require landlords and developers who seek to demolish midsize rental buildings and replace them with large towers to obtain a permit from the city. Landlords would also be required to provide replacement units in new developments, inform renters of their rights under provincial legislation, and provide renters with financial compensation, including for moving expenses. Demovictions are expected to increase as land values continue to rise and there is more demand for housing in the city. The goal of the bylaw is to preserve and protect existing affordable rental units.
  
  
• Ontario is set to receive $4.7 billion from the federal government for housing and infrastructure
  
  The Ontario government recently renewed a Canada Community-Building Fund agreement with the federal government. As part of the agreement, Ontario will receive $4.7 billion over the next five years for housing and related infrastructure, to be allocated to municipalities. The province says that the funds will go towards increasing the capacity of the non-profit sector, creating a provincial strategy around innovative types of housing, such as modular housing, and leveraging public lands to increase housing supply. To support households in greatest need, advocates say that the government must prioritize allocating this funding to the non-profit housing sector to create non-market housing options.
  

QUEBEC

• New report shows that the housing crisis in Quebec is not based on supply and demand
  
  A new report by the Regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ) shows that although the number of residential units built in Quebec in the last decade surpassed the growth of households, many of those units remain empty and are still out of reach for many households due to rapidly rising rents. Average rents in Montreal increased by 27 per cent between 2020 and 2024, while the rate of evictions across the province rose by 135 per cent in 2023 alone. The report’s findings rebut the government’s framing of the housing crisis as a supply-and-demand issue, with an increase in supply as the main solution. Instead, RCLALQ recommends building more social housing, which the province is in dire need of after its social housing program was cancelled in the 1990s, as well as strengthening rent control measures, implementing a province-wide rental registry, and increasing restrictions on evictions. Increasing supply cannot be the only solution to the housing crisis and various measures need to be implemented to address the housing affordability and adequacy crisis. 
  
  
• Quebec renters are more likely to face a disputed eviction in areas with more visible minorities and immigrants
  
  According to a Globe and Mail analysis that compared recent data from Quebec’s housing tribunal with the 2021 Census, the highest rates of evictions that were appealed to the tribunal were from areas in the province where a higher number of visible minorities and immigrants live. Eviction notices are not recorded if renters do not oppose them, which leaves contested evictions as the only way to measure where evictions are taking place. Local community organizers and housing advocates say that these findings align with the trend of historically affordable and diverse neighborhoods facing rising housing costs and subsequent rent increases, leading to greater risk of economic eviction for households unable to pay. Furthermore, in some of these neighborhoods, immigrant renters are seeking support, as they face new buyers trying to evict them to increase their profits. This research highlights the power imbalance between landlords and renters in minority and immigrant communities, and the barriers they face in accessing adequate and affordable housing and exercising their rights. 
  
  
• Auditor General report examines state of Montreal’s low-income housing
  
  Montreal Auditor General Andrée Cossette recently released a report, which tackles issues related to low-income housing, among others. The report identifies several issues in low-income housing, including wait times of up to six years and the deterioration of units, with 61 per cent of units being in poor or very poor condition. As of the end of 2022, 23,000 applicants, many of whom have children, were waiting for low-income housing. The report identified that poor management has prevented the appropriate allocation of units to households in need, including failure to respect the priority list. The Auditor General called for more inspections of low-income units to ensure that they meet the necessary conditions.
   

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WESTERN CANADA

MANITOBA

• Manitoba proposes new limits for above guideline rent increases
  
  The Manitoba government recently introduced a bill that would make it harder for landlords to raise rents above the annual provincial guidelines, by setting conditions for which they can seek this type of increase. Applications for above guideline rent increases would be restricted to situations in which landlords invest in capital projects, such as plumbing and heating, or face a significant rise in taxes, utilities, and/or security costs. This is a significant victory for renters and housing advocates, as currently, landlords can apply to the residential tenancies director for an above guideline increase for any reason. However, no changes have been made to the way increases are calculated by the residential tenancies board, and some units remain exempt from the provincial rent increase guideline. The bill is expected to pass when the legislature sits again in the fall.  
  

Alberta

• Advocates in Calgary warn that landlords are using government-funded climate retrofits as a way to hike rents
  
  Advocates in Calgary are warning that financialized landlords are leveraging government funding to retrofit their aging buildings to increase rents. This trend risks further jeopardizing the stability of lower income renters, especially in the absence of rent regulations in the province. While upgrading aging buildings is essential in the face of climate change, there is a danger that financialized landlords are using green investments to maximize profits. The current business model of most financialized landlords is based on acquiring older buildings and upgrading them to increase rents and attract more affluent renters, displacing current low-income renters in the process. Public funding should not be used to contribute to this model of increasing profits and displacing renters. In the absence of robust accountability mechanisms, Calgary’s tight rental market could present the ideal environment in which financialized landlords can increase the value of older buildings, and their profits, under the guise of addressing climate change. 
  
  

British Columbia

• British Colombia introduces new regulations to support community planning
  
  The British Columbia government recently introduced new regulations to standardize and improve community planning in the province, in an effort to make it easier and faster to build more homes. Under the regulations, municipalities will be required to complete housing needs reports every five years, using a new provincial standardized method for calculating housing needs, with guidance from the province. Municipalities must then update their zoning by-laws and official community plans to accommodate current and anticipated needs over five years. This regulation is part of the province’s Homes for People Plan, which aims to give local governments the support and authority they need to increase housing in their municipalities, as they struggle to meet targets set by the province.
  

NATIONAL

• The Review Panel on the Financialization of Purpose-Built Rental Housing Submits Report to the Minister of Housing 
  
  On May 29, the National Housing Council’s Review Panel on the Financialization of Purpose-Built Rental Housing released a new report. The report provides solutions to advance the right to housing in Canada, and was informed by extensive engagement with lived experts, people from historically marginalized communities, and housing and human rights experts. The review panel examined linkages between financialization, housing affordability, and renters’ rights. The report shows that financialized housing leads to increased rents, evictions and displacement of lower income communities, and poor building maintenance, among other negative impacts. The review panel issued five key recommendations to the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, who has 120 days to respond. These recommendations reflect those issued in CCHR’s submission to the Review Panel, and include increasing investments in non-market housing supply, protecting the existing affordable supply, and strengthening renter supports and protections. While these recommendations can be effective, it is disappointing that they did not include measures to address the tax incentives and loopholes that financialized landlords continue to benefit from, which drive them to use tactics that harm renters in order to increase their profits.
  
  
• Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) released a series of new progress reports
  
  CMHC’s 2023 Annual Report shows that the Crown agency surpassed its 2023 housing targets despite difficult economic conditions. However, less housing was built last year compared to previous years, as rising interest rates and a lack of skilled labor continue to impede Canada’s goal of creating 3.5 million new homes by 2030. CMHC’s 2024 Housing Market Outlook forecasts a slow economic rebound, with even fewer housing starts in the coming year and increased demand for rental housing. A CMHC survey on the state of Canada’s rental housing shows that despite some improvements in accessibility, rents have increased by 17 per cent nationally since 2019, while the existing rental stock is deteriorating across the board.
  
  
• New report shows increased federal spending on homelessness has had little impact
  
  The Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer commissioned a report on federal spending on homelessness, revealing that funding has increased by 374 per cent over the last 10 years, but failed to meaningfully reduce homelessness. While the report estimates that interventions funded by the main federal homelessness program, Reaching Home, have prevented 6,000 people from becoming homeless, the proportion of people experiencing chronic homelessness has increased by 38 per cent since 2018. The federal government would need to invest seven times its current spending to meet its goal of reducing chronic homelessness by half.
  
  
• Canada recognizes housing as a human right. Few provinces have followed suit.
  
  Following the release of the Federal Housing Advocate’s report on homeless encampments urging all provinces to adopt legislation upholding housing as a human right, the Canadian Press asked each province about their commitments to the right to housing. Most provinces remained vague and pointed to measures underway to address the housing crisis in their jurisdictions. Quebec’s Premier openly rejected housing as a fundamental human right, instead calling it “essential.” In contrast, P.E.I. referred to the recognition of housing as a human right under its Residential Tenancy Act, while Manitoba aligned with Canada’s rights-based approach to housing. The Federal Housing Advocate questioned the provinces’ understanding of a rights-based approach, and stressed the need for meaningful engagement and respecting people’s dignity. CCHR’s Director of Policy and Law Reform said that recognizing housing as a human right requires legislative action, noting that P.E.I.’s legislation lacks enforcement measures. We encourage provinces to amend their tenancy rules so that evictions are used only as a last resort.

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ATLANTIC CANADA

Newfoundland and Labrador

• No more encampment evictions, says Federal Housing Advocate
  
  Federal Housing Advocate Marie-Josée Houle has voiced her disagreement with the provincial government’s plan to evict residents of a St. John’s encampment. Last month, the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure posted signs around Tent City that effectively criminalized unhoused people. Soon thereafter, the same department hired private contractors to dismantle the encampment. Houle reminded the government that enforcement measures to clear encampments should be compliant with human rights standards and that the government should provide alternative measures to house encampment residents following meaningful engagement. While the government argued that alternative shelter options are available, residents who have transitioned through the city’s shelters reported that living conditions were inadequate and unsafe and that Tent City had provided a safer option for them.

NOVA SCOTIA

• Large Halifax landlords report double-digit operating income growth in first quarter of 2024
  
  Two large rental property corporations in Halifax have reported income increases of 12 to 14 per cent over the first quarter of 2024. Both companies attribute the increased revenue to higher rents and lower utility costs in their buildings. Compared to last year, rents in these buildings have increased by 5.7 to 7.2 per cent, above the provincial rent cap of five per cent. In the absence of vacancy control, average rents in Halifax have increased beyond provincial guidelines when new renters move into a unit, or when an existing renter signs a new lease. At the national level, the two companies increased rents by 19.6 to 23 per cent, and due to the size of these entities, their financial data likely reflects an overall upward trend in landlord profits across the country.
  
  
• Halifax protesters demand ban on fixed-term leases
  
  On May 3, ACORN Halifax held a protest to demand a ban on fixed-term leases in Nova Scotia. Fixed-term leases, unlike periodic leases, allow landlords to raise rents above the province’s five per cent cap between tenancies. Advocates say that this practice results in significant rent hikes that push people out of their homes and prevent them from re-entering the rental market. While lease information is not collected by the government, ACORN highlighted the 600 per cent increase in unhoused people in Halifax over the past year as evidence of landlords’ increased use of fixed-term leases. A 2023 survey conducted by the Elizabeth Fry Society also revealed that nearly 23 per cent of the people they interviewed lost their homes due to a renoviction or fixed-term lease. ACORN advocates are now asking the provincial government to vote in favor of new legislation currently being discussed in the legislature that could restrict the use of fixed-term leases. The provincial government has responded by emphasizing their focus on increasing housing supply, rather than altering lease regulations. 

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CENTRAL CANADA

ONTARIO

• City of Ottawa takes first step to pass a long-overdue renoviction bylaw
  
  The City of Ottawa has taken a significant step towards addressing renovictions by voting to explore a new bylaw, modelled after Hamilton’s renoviction bylaw. The anti-renoviction bylaw would aim to protect renters from being evicted in bad faith to be replaced by renters paying a higher amount. The decision follows a notable increase in renovictions, with Ottawa ACORN reporting a 545 per cent rise in eviction notices in the city between 2017 and 2022. The bylaw would require landlords to obtain a building permit and provide an engineer’s report proving the necessity of major renovation works before evicting renters. Additionally, landlords would need to offer temporary accommodation or compensation and allow renters to return at the same rental rate once renovations are complete. 
  
  
• Ontario seals $357 million housing deal with federal government
  
  In light of Ontario’s failure to meet the housing targets in its Action Plan under the National Housing Strategy, the federal government had previously decided to withhold $357 million in affordable housing funding from the province. Federal housing minister Sean Fraser criticized Ontario’s performance, as the province has achieved only six per cent of its targets, announcing that the funds would be disbursed directly to municipalities. In response, the provincial government developed a revised Action Plan that promised to achieve 28 per cent of its original targets and includes an improved funding delivery model through municipal service managers. The federal government reversed its decision to bypass the province for new funding as the revised targets puts Ontario on par with other provinces. 
  

QUEBEC

• Quebec housing minister tables bill putting three-year pause on certain evictions
  
  On May 22, Quebec housing minister France-Élaine Duranceau tabled Bill 65, An Act to limit lessors’ right of eviction and to enhance the protection of senior lessees. The proposed bill would impose a three-year moratorium on evictions for subdivision, enlargement, or change of use of a rental unit. The moratorium could be lifted earlier if Quebec’s vacancy rate rises above three per cent. Evictions for necessary demolitions and repossession for a landlord’s own use are not covered by the bill. The new legislation would also extend protections against evictions for seniors. Currently, low-income seniors over 70 who have lived in their rental unit for at least 10 years are protected from evictions. Bill 65 would extend this protection to 24,000 additional households, by lowering the minimum age to 65 and increasing the threshold for qualifying income by 25 per cent. While the Liberals have reserved their judgment until the bill is further studied, Québec Solidaire and housing organizations like FRAPRU and RCLALQ welcomed the measures in Bill 65, which they have long pushed for, while challenging the minister’s view that the housing crisis in Quebec has been spurred by a recent spike in temporary residents. Both FRAPRU and RCLALQ would like to see the bill go further, by including evictions for repossessions under the moratorium.    

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WESTERN CANADA

MANITOBA

• Housing incentive program would require Winnipeg developers to offer subsidized units
  
  The City of Winnipeg is considering a new bylaw to create a Capital Grant Incentive Program using $25 million from the federal Housing Accelerator Fund allocation. If approved, this incentive program would offer grants of $25,000 to $35,000 per unit to build 600 new affordable units in multi-residential projects and downtown housing developments. Eligible developers would be required to offer half of the units as rent-geared-to income, supportive, or transitional housing. The incentive program would also require efficient project planning, and eligible projects would need to be shovel-ready within one year. CCHR’s Senior Policy and Outreach Advisor, Yutaka Dirks, commended the program’s emphasis on rent-geared-to-income housing. However, he notes the need for clarity on the definition of affordability. The incentive program defines affordable housing as either 80 per cent of median market rents, or 30 per cent of median household income, both of which would be unaffordable to lower income households.
  

saskatchewan

• Broad support for Saskatoon’s affordable housing plan
  
  The City of Saskatoon is planning to allocate $41.3 million from the federal Housing Accelerator Fund to build more affordable housing. Most of the funding would be dedicated to various incentive programs, including the Innovative Housing Incentives policy, densification projects, and developments on municipal land. Eligible developers would be able to access up to $27,000 per unit and benefit from a five-year tax abatement for each new affordable unit built. Developers would be required to maintain affordability for a minimum of 20 years, with units priced below market rates. The length of the affordability period raised concern among landlords who believe it will deter developers from building in Saskatoon. Meanwhile, housing advocates argue that long-term agreements are necessary, as there is little incentive for landlords to keep their rents affordable otherwise.
  

Alberta

• Alberta government passes contentious suite of bills as spring legislature session wraps up
  
  The Alberta legislature passed a controversial piece of legislation introduced by the UCP last month: Bill 20, Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act. On the one hand, measures in the bill would provide municipalities with new tools to speed up housing construction. For example, municipalities could exempt non-profit and subsidized housing from municipal taxes, reduce requirements for building and environmental standards, offer digital options for public consultations, remove non-essential public hearings, and reduce the number of pre-development studies. On the other hand, Bill 20 complements measures contained in another controversial legislation, Bill 18, that would further expand provincial power in Alberta. While Bill 18 requires municipalities to obtain approval from the provincial government to enter into agreements with the federal government, Bill 20 enables the province to remove elected municipal Council members and repeal local bylaws. Pressure from municipal leaders led the Municipal Affairs Minister to add conditions to these powers. 
  
  
• Edmonton mayor names 16-member task force to tackle housing and homelessness issues
  
  Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi recently announced the creation of the Community Mobilization Task Force on Housing and Homelessness. This task force aims to address growing rates of housing precarity and homelessness in Edmonton. The initiative has been in development since the City declared a housing and homelessness emergency at the beginning of 2024, and the mandate of the task force will go beyond studying issues underlying the housing and homelessness crisis in Edmonton, to focus on developing actionable solutions to create more non-market and supportive housing options.
  

British Columbia

• Provincial government steps in to prevent a summer homelessness crisis
  
  Following appeals from the City of Vancouver to the provincial government to uphold bylaws to protect Single Room Occupancy (SRO) units (after the bylaws were struck down by provincial courts), provincial Bill 27, Municipalities Enabling and Validating Amendment Act, received Royal Assent on May 16. The bill gives power to the City of Vancouver to enact its SRO bylaws and curb rent gouging in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Owners of SRO units will no longer be able to increase rents beyond the provincial limit between tenancies, while facing strong penalties for non-compliance. Local housing advocates welcomed the news, saying that it will help protect close to 3,600 low-income renters. Since February, almost 500 SRO renters have been evicted and 1,000 more are at risk of being displaced through economic evictions. SRO rents have increased by a staggering 21 per cent in recent years, with some units renting for as high as $2,000 per month. The Mayor of Vancouver lauded the provincial government, but recognized it as a temporary measure that might not continue after the provincial election in October. Housing advocates are also calling on the government to extend vacancy control to all rentals, a proposal the government does not support, as it believes it could deter private investments in new housing supply, despite evidence to the contrary.
  
  
• Homelessness survivors call for reform at BC legislature
  
  On May 7, members of the Housing Justice Project called on the provincial government to implement the eight actions to eliminate homelessness outlined in their report Homes for All: Evaluating the Right to Housing in Victoria. The report is informed by lived experts and sheds light on the living options of people who have experienced homelessness. It argues that temporary and transitional shelters are unsafe and do not meet human rights standards for adequate housing. In Greater Victoria, close to 1,700 people experience homelessness on any given night, and 87 per cent reported being unable to secure permanent housing due to high rent prices and a lack of affordable options. The report calls for the elimination of long-term shelters and transitional housing, and instead advocates for a direct path to permanent housing and drastically increasing the supply of subsidized units.

The federal, provincial, and territorial governments have significant resources and policy levers at their disposal to tackle the housing affordability crisis and ensure secure, affordable homes for everyone in Canada. Below, we outline key housing-related investments in each of the 2024 federal, provincial, and territorial budgets and assess their potential to advance the right to housing by supporting renters and investing in affordable housing. 

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FEDERAL

Budget 2024: Fairness for Every Generation

It is encouraging to see the federal government take a leadership role in tackling the housing crisis through a comprehensive approach by investing in a range of programs to increase housing supply, preserve and build affordable housing, protect renters, and address homelessness. 

However, it is concerning that the government remains focused primarily on building more housing supply, despite evidence that more supply will not address housing affordability. In addition, that budget is missing a number of measures that CCHR recommended, including leveraging public lands for deeply affordable housing, expanding the Canada Housing Benefit, increasing investments in the Urban, Rural, and Northern Indigenous housing strategy, and implementing measures to address the financialization of housing and advance the right to housing. Read CCHR’s in-depth analysis here. 

Reiterating many of the announcements from the recent Canada Housing Plan, the 2024 federal budget includes several key housing commitments. Highlights include:  

• An additional $15 billion for the Apartment Construction Loan Program. 
• $6 billion for a new Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund. 
• $4.3 billion over seven years to an Urban, Rural, and Northern Indigenous housing strategy, previously announced. 
• $1.5 billion for a new Canada Rental Protection Fund for non-profits to acquire and protect low-end of market rentals. 
• $1.5 for the Co-operative Housing Development Program, previously announced. 
• An additional $1 billion to the Reaching Home homelessness strategy, plus $250 million to address encampments. 
• An additional $1 billion to the Rapid Housing Stream under the Affordable Housing Fund. 
• Continuation of the existing $960 million Interim Housing Assistance Program. 
• An additional $400 million for the Housing Accelerator Fund. 
• $15 million for a new Tenant Protection Fund. 
• A new Canadian Renters’ Bill of Rights. 
• Launching a Public Lands for Homes Plan, including $500 million towards a Public Lands Acquisition Fund and $116.9 million to top up the Federal Lands Initiative.  
• Launching Canada Builds through a combination of federal low-cost loans and provincial and territorial investments.  
• Removing GST from new co-ops and student housing, plus new rental apartment construction, previously announced. 
  

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ATLANTIC CANADA

New brunswick 

Budget 2024-25 – Stronger than Ever: Let’s Keep Building 

The 2024-25 budget increases investments in housing by 54 per cent over its previous budget. To reach provincial targets to reduce the number of households spending over 30 per cent of their income on rent and decrease the number of households on the subsidized housing waitlist, the budget prioritizes the provision of rent supplements. The government also aims to hold annual rent increases at an average of 2.5 per cent. However, rather than reinstating ever loosening rent regulations, the province intends to achieve that target by relying on the construction of new housing supply. Yet, in the absence of strong rent regulations, new supply on its own will not keep rent increases reasonable.  

Development of the community housing sector is largely absent from this budget, with only 380 public housing units targeted for development over three years. Meanwhile, housing advocates have emphasized the need for investments to create 10,000 public housing units and preserve currently affordable units and land. 

New Brunswick’s 2024-2025 budget includes many of the investments committed in the 2023 NB Housing Strategy: Housing For All: 

• $100 million over three years to build new public housing units.  
• $22 million for a direct-to-tenant rental benefit for families and seniors in core housing need. 
• $11 million in permanent funding for homelessness responses, including operational funding for emergency shelters and Homeless Hubs, prevention and diversion services, and supportive housing development.  
• $8.9 million for rent supplements. 
• $5.5 million through the Canada Housing Benefit to help an additional 1,200 New Brunswick households. 
• $3.5 million through the Canada Housing Benefit to support survivors of gender-based violence. 
• $3 million through the Rent Bank to support renter households in arrears. 
• $2.6 million to build affordable houses in partnership with Habitat for Humanity.  
• $2.5 million to support the development and repair of rental units.  

Newfoundland and labrador

Budget 2024 – Transforming: Our Health. Our Economy. Our Province

Through its 2024 budget, the province makes some investments to build and maintain public and supportive housing, while funding rent supplements and initiatives to stimulate market housing construction more generously. While CMHC forecasted that Newfoundland requires an additional 60,000 homes by 2030 beyond typical development trends, there are 17,510 households that require affordable housing now. 

Advocates welcomed new funding toward affordable housing and homelessness initiatives, especially given that 50 per cent of the population experiencing homelessness in St. John’s are from other areas of the province, while the city has limited resources to adequately address the depth of need. 

Newfoundland and Labrador’s 2024 Budget contains the following housing investments:  

• $50 million for the Rental Housing Development Loan Program. 
• $36 million over four years to build new provincial housing units. 
• $30 million over three years for the construction of a new service hub to provide integrated health and housing supports for people experiencing homelessness. 
• $21 million for private market rent supplements. 
• $13 million for the Transitional Supportive Living Initiative. 
• $12 million over four years for targeted provincial housing repairs and modernization, plus an $8 million increase to the overall provincial housing repairs, maintenance, and renovations budget. 
• $4 million to continue the Secondary and Basement Suite Program. 
• $3 million to rebate HST on new residential rental development. 
• $1.5 million for new supportive housing units and low-barrier emergency shelter beds. 

NOVA SCOTIA 

Building Nova Scotia, Faster: Budget 2024-25 

The 2024-25 budget invests heavily in initiatives to create more housing supply, following the province’s recent Housing Needs Assessment Report. The report identified the need for more student housing to lessen demand elsewhere in the market, while also noting the increasing cost of construction and employment vacancies in the construction industry as barriers to new housing supply. 

With a budget focused largely on supply, investment in initiatives to protect affordable housing and assist households currently struggling with affordability are sorely missed. As we identified in our pre-budget submission, 8,500 rent supplements and modest investment in new public housing are insufficient to meet the needs of low- and moderate-income Nova Scotians.  

Moreover, the rent regulation framework in Nova Scotia allows landlords to raise rents with impunity when there is renter turnover. A fixed-term lease loophole, which permits the use of leases with end dates, allows landlords to continually turnover units to new renters at higher rents. The government’s lack of action towards preserving existing affordable units and/or providing all renters with security of tenure is a glaring gap that will allow rents to continue to rise to unattainable levels, despite new supply. 

Housing related investments in the 2024-2025 Nova Scotia budget include: 

• $84.6 million for initiatives to address homelessness, including new supportive housing units and operational funding for shelters.  
• $80-$100 million annually (estimated) in HST rebates on new purpose-built, multi-unit apartments.  
• $69.2 million for rent supplements. 
• $35.3 million to build and repair public housing units.  
• $32.1 million for student housing. 
• $11.8 million for modular public housing.  
• $3.6 million for a rapid housing initiative to develop new affordable housing units. 

Prince edward island

2024-25 Prince Edward Island Budget 

It is encouraging to see the budget prioritize investments to build, preserve, and operate non-profit, co-operative, and public housing, which is critical to support households in greatest housing need and ensure long term affordability. However, housing advocates noted that PEI has lost a significant number of affordable housing units and questioned the efficacy of the budget’s level of investment in preservation and development efforts at this stage in the housing crisis. 

The budget also fails to provide support for existing renters, following calls from advocates and opposition parties for an extension of the expired moratorium on renovictions until November 2024, in the midst of record-low vacancy rates. Advocates have similarly been seeking further renter supports and protections, including a rent registry to prevent illegal rent increases and a provincial maintenance standards regulation enforced through public inspectors (following the dilution of maintenance standards in the recently updated Residential Tenancy Act). 

The 2024-25 Prince Edward Island (PEI) operating budget follows the launch of its five-year housing strategy and includes: 

• $10 million for the new Community Housing Expansion Program to build and preserve affordable housing with non-profits and co-ops. 
• $6.9 million to expand shelter spaces and supports.  
• $6.7 million in tax rebates for new multi-unit residential buildings, including HST and property tax rebates. 
• $1.6 million for PEI Housing Corporation to operate new social housing units. 
• $200,000 to develop PEI’s Land Use Plan. 

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CENTRAL CANADA

ONTARIO

2024 Ontario Budget: Building a Better Ontario

Aside from the modest supportive housing investments, the budget prioritizes “attainable” housing initiatives (which it has yet to define), with minimal commitments toward preserving and building deeply affordable, non-market housing for low income households. This is reflected in current trends, as the vast majority of provincial housing starts over the past year have been in the private market. The promise of supportive housing development next year pales in comparison to the current depth of need, including for people experiencing homelessness.  

The budget also fails to provide support or stabilization for renters, such as housing subsidies, stronger rent regulations, and greater accountability and enforcement of renter rights. Further, housing advocates had called for the budget to invest in a community housing acquisition fund, an urban, rural, and northern Indigenous housing strategy, and mechanisms to address financialization and implement the right to housing. 

Following its recent red tape reduction bill, the province continues to prioritize initiatives to stimulate new housing supply with insufficient or absent affordability requirements. It also remains to be seen whether Ontario will receive National Housing Strategy funding after failing to meet its commitments to build more affordable housing. 

The 2024 Ontario budget includes some new and previously announced housing investments, focused primarily on building new supply: 

• $1.8 billion over three years for the new Municipal Infrastructure Program and enhanced Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund to support housing-enabling infrastructure. 
• $152 million over three years for supportive housing, including rent supplements and support for units with expiring operating agreements, with new supportive housing development to be considered next year. 
• Enabling municipalities to lower property taxes for new purpose-built rentals and implement a vacant home tax. 
• Developing an attainable housing program, including modular and other innovative construction methods. 
• Prioritizing surplus public properties for government priorities, including attainable housing. 

QUEBEC

2024 Quebec Budget: Priorities: Health and Education 

The Quebec budget brings investments in housing to $6.3 billion between 2019 and 2029, with the aim of creating 23,000 new affordable housing units across the province. However, funding for housing decreased by 4.9 per cent compared to last year, while construction is lagging, with close to 12,500 new units already funded but not yet built. 

FRAPRU and other housing advocates expressed their disappointment in the lack of meaningful investments in social and non-profit housing, calling for the government to double its current housing supply targets and build 50,000 social housing units by 2029 to meet the needs of Quebec renters.  

The 2024 Quebec budget outlines how previous funding commitments will be disbursed between existing housing programs over the next five years: 

• $1.8 billion in cost-match funding with the federal government through the Housing Accelerator Fund. 
• $532 million for homelessness prevention, including $282 million for transitional and social housing. 
• $483 million for affordable housing, including $219 million to maintain and repair existing social housing stock and $200 million to increase rent supplements under the Shelter Allowance Program (Programme Allocation-logement). 
• $375 million to build seniors housing. 
• $7.5 million to build student housing. 

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WESTERN CANADA

MANITOBA

One Future. One People. One Manitoba. Budget 2024 

Prior to the release of the budget, CCHR outlined several priorities for housing investments through our advocacy and media engagement. While the 2024 budget funds the acquisition or construction of new affordable housing, the 350 units of social housing promised is far short of the 1,000 rent-geared-to-income housing units needed, according to Manitoba’s Right to Housing Coalition. Moreover, the $67.8 million investment in social housing capital maintenance and modernization is welcome, but accounts for less than half of what the Manitoba Non-Profit Housing Association says is needed each year to ensure the sustainability of the community housing sector. 

Under the newly created department of Housing, Addictions and Homelessness, the 2024 Manitoba budget includes:  

• $67.8 million to modernize existing social housing and $4.4 million to maintain operating subsidies, previously announced.  
• $20 million for a Capital Grant Program for community housing providers to increase affordable housing supply through acquisition, renovation, or new construction.  
• $15 million for the Rent Assist housing benefit.  
• $10 million for an Affordable Housing Partnership Program targeting the private sector, municipal, and Indigenous governments to increase affordable housing supply.  
• A new $6 million Acquisition Fund for non-profits to acquire existing units. 
• $5 million for housing supports to end chronic homelessness. 
• $4 million for renovation of existing non-profit housing, plus $4 million for routine maintenance of Manitoba Housing units.   
• $1 million for the Rent Relief Fund, which provides loans for renters in arears.  
• $1 million for a Pest Control Program for Manitoba Housing  
• A new Rental Housing Construction Tax Credit. 

saskatchewan

2024-25 Saskatchewan Budget: Classrooms, Care & Communities 

It is encouraging that the Saskatchewan government is focusing most of its new housing-related budget spending on social housing maintenance, alongside investments in supportive housing and other homelessness supports. However, long-term government divestment from its public housing portfolio has led to significant maintenance and repair backlogs, record vacancy levels, and overall reduction in the provincial social housing stock. In tandem with policy changes reducing the eligibility of moderate-income households to access subsidized housing, this approach has led to increased rates of homelessness and housing need across the province. 

While the budget includes incentives for private sector housing development through tax rebates and funding for secondary suites, it fails to invest in the expansion of affordable, non-market housing, which is fundamental to meet the needs of low and moderate-income households, especially in light of the limited availability and habitability of its existing public housing stock. Moreover, the budget includes minimal support for renters, with a minor increase to shelter benefits available to SIS recipients (following previous cuts) and no additional investments in the Saskatchewan Housing Benefit. 

The 2024-25 Saskatchewan budget includes: 

• $23.1 million for the Provincial Approach to Homelessness for emergency shelter operations and supportive housing development. 
• $20.2 million for the Saskatchewan Housing Corporation to repair and maintain social housing units. 
• $7.4 million to increase Saskatchewan Income Support (SIS) basic and shelter benefits by three per cent, up to $60 monthly per household. 
• $2.7 million for the Saskatchewan Secondary Suite Incentive Grant Program. 
• Ongoing Provincial Sales Tax (PST) rebate on the New Home Construction Program. 

ALBERTA

2024 Alberta Budget: A Responsible Plan for a Growing Province 

Alberta’s total budget for housing and homelessness exceeds $1 billion in funding, with $829 million to build new affordable housing and preserve existing units, representing a 75 per cent increase from last year’s budget. It is promising to see the Alberta government increasing housing supports for marginalized populations and dedicating more funding toward subsidized housing and non-profit housing providers.  

However, over half of the budget’s capital investments are geared towards private sector incentives, while funding for housing affordability pales in comparison with the depth of need, particularly for low-income renters. Budget 2024 provides assistance to 5,650 households, in addition to the 58,600 the province is currently supporting, which represents a mere 3.5 per cent of all households in need. Additionally, in spite of a strong start to 2024 for new builds, home prices are surging and rents have increased to a record high.  

Housing advocates in Calgary have lauded the more progressive measures in the housing budget, while advocates in Edmonton have deplored cuts made to emergency assistance funding. While the budget addresses some of the measures that CCHR recommended, it is missing crucial measures to improve housing affordability, such as prioritizing non-profit developers to build new affordable supply and indexing rent supplements to inflation. Without strong rent regulations and meaningful investments in social and community housing, the encouraging steps the government has taken to increase housing supports and preserve existing units will signify little in the face of escalating housing and living costs. 

The 2024 Alberta budget increases investments over the next three years to advance existing housing and shelter programs, focusing on building new supply: 

• $717 million in capital grants through Alberta’s Affordable Housing Strategy, including: 
  • $405 million for the Affordable Housing Partnership Program, which provides funding or land to incentivize developers to build affordable housing. 
  • $130 million for the Seniors Lodge Modernization Program. 
  • $91 million for the maintenance and renewal of government-owned social housing buildings. 
  • $75 million for the Indigenous Housing Capital Program to build, purchase, or redevelop Indigenous housing. 
• $257 million for Alberta Social Housing Corporation operations. 
• $170 million in combined funding under the Homelessness Task Force Action Plan, the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence Program and Alberta’s Safe Streets Action Plan, to support shelter providers and improve shelter spaces and services, prioritizing women with experience of domestic violence. 
• $121 million for capital maintenance and renewal of seniors’ facilities. 
• $75 million in operating funding to support community and non-profit housing providers. 

British Columbia

Budget 2024: Taking action for people and families in B.C. 

While the 2024 budget for housing is modest compared to the previous year, the province is still making significant investments in housing that complement a string of recent legislative measures to increase residential density, protect renters, and preserve affordable housing. Over the next three years, $2.4 billion in capital spending will be dedicated to housing, with an 115 per cent increase in funding for housing subsidies and incentives.  

However, while the introduction of additional supports for renters has been welcomed, the budget continues to prioritize attainable homeownership for moderate-income households. The new supply expected under B.C. Builds would need to be 12 to 15 times higher to meet demand for housing across the province. As B.C. continues to lead the country in high rent prices, current housing investments are insufficient to provide enough affordable housing for low- to moderate-income renters. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association note that the tax exemption funding for homeownership, along with the homeowner grant program, could be put to better use if directed towards rent supports and investments in non-market supply. 

The 2024 B.C. budget prioritizes supports for renters, while continuing to fund new housing supply over the next three years:  

• $267 million to launch the Renter’s Tax Credit, which provides up to $400 in tax exemption to low- and moderate-income renters. 
• $198 million in new funding for BC Builds on top of the $950 million already committed, to speed up the development of new housing for middle-income households. 
• $151 million to develop Indigenous-led social housing and community services. 
• $116 million in operational funding to support existing housing programs and maintain shelter spaces. 
• $100 million to increase the limits on tax exemption programs to stimulate demand for homeownership. 
• $4 million to extend the Property Transfer Tax exemption to purpose-built rental buildings of four or more units, until 2030. 

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NORTHERN CANADA

NUNAVUT

Nunavut Budget 2024-2025  

Most renter households in Nunavut have limited interaction with the market. In Iqaluit, for instance, most of the rental housing is non-market based. Leases are typically held by government organizations and rented out as social housing through the Nunavut Housing Corporation (which administers 22 per cent of all rental units in Iqaluit) or as government staff housing. Employers also typically hold leases and rent units out as employee housing for private firms. As such, housing funding in the budget is mainly directed towards maintaining existing and building new public housing.  

However, Nunavut has the highest level of housing need in Canada. Approximately 49 per cent of the population cannot secure housing that is affordable in the private market, which underscores the need for more rental supplements to support renters in the private market, in addition to the current funding commitments for public sector housing.  

The 2024-2025 Nunavut budget includes:  

• $82.7 million to build new public and staff housing, including through the Nunavut 3000 plan, plus support for home ownership and repairs. 
• $7.7 million for additional public housing for local housing authorities. 
• $7.5 million for supportive housing. 
• $1.9 million for shelters. 

YUKON

Yukon Budget 2024-2025 

It is promising to see funding going towards renovating units owned by the Yukon Housing Corporation, through which the territorial government provides a significant amount of affordable housing stock. It is also encouraging to see funding for new affordable homes and Housing First projects, the development of supportive units and rental housing, and rental subsidies. Investments in rental subsidies are crucial, as the most recent data available shows that 20 per cent of families in Whitehorse cannot afford market housing without financial assistance.  

Some advocates have called for greater investment in rural land development to improve housing access. CCHR has recommended that land development policies should prioritize affordable and non-profit housing to ensure that public investments result in deeply affordable housing units. 

The 2024-2025 Yukon budget includes:  

• $27.3 million to build affordable homes, community housing and Housing First projects and replace aging units. 
• $25.9 million to support land development across the Yukon, including for housing. 
• $8.3 million for rental housing development. 
• $6 million to develop supportive housing units. 
• $5.5 million in loans for individuals and developers to buy and build houses, and for homeowners to repair their principal residence. 
• $2 million to renovate and rehabilitate Yukon Housing Corporation units. 
• $1.2 million in rental subsidies through the Canada-Yukon Housing Benefit. 
• $2.1 million in rental subsidies for people escaping gender-based violence. 

On April 12, 2024, the federal government unveiled a new housing strategy – Canada’s Housing Plan – as a significant part of its 2024 budget. The plan aims to “solve the housing crisis” by investing in programs to increase housing supply, preserve and build affordable housing, protect renters, and address homelessness.

It is encouraging to see the federal government take a leadership role in tackling the housing crisis through a comprehensive approach with significant new investments and a suite of measures. This demonstrates the government’s recognition that building more supply alone will not address the housing crisis, and that distinct policies and programs are needed to ensure housing affordability.

However, we are concerned that the government remains focused primarily on building more housing supply as the key solution to the crisis, despite evidence that more supply will not address the primary challenge facing millions of people across Canada today: affordability. To effectively address the housing affordability crisis, the government must prioritize policies and programs that specifically address housing affordability, alongside robust protections for renters.

The good news – measures that address housing affordability 

Canada’s Housing Plan contains a number of promising measures that can help address housing affordability, representing a renewed federal approach to housing policy following decades of inaction and half measures. Beginning in the 1980s, Canadian governments progressively retreated from these important interventions in housing, and since then, have relied almost exclusively on the private market to meet Canadians’ diverse housing needs. In 2017, the federal government introduced a National Housing Strategy, but it was unambitious, underfunded, and proved to be ineffective. The housing affordability crisis has continued to worsen, to the point that more than half of Canadian renters are worried about being able to pay their rent. This new plan sends an encouraging signal that the government may finally be starting to take the crisis seriously. 

It is also encouraging that the plan includes some recognition of the need for distinct programs and policies that directly target affordability, which we recommended in our pre-budget submission. These measures include, over the next five years: 

• An additional $1 billion to the Rapid Housing Stream (RHS) of the Affordable Housing Fund (AHF). The RHS (formerly a separate program called the Rapid Housing Initiative) has been more successful than other NHS funding streams at creating affordable and non-profit housing. This brings the total funding to date under both programs to $18.8 billion. 
• A new $1.5 billion Canada Rental Protection Fund for non-profits and other partners to identify and purchase affordable private-market buildings at risk of rent increases and renter displacement, which will help maintain tenancies and keep rents affordable over the long term. Housing advocates have long called for this type of acquisition program. 
• Launching a $1.5 billion funding program to support co-operative housing developments, which was previously announced in the 2022 federal budget. Co-operatives are one of the few models that can provide long-term affordable rents outside the private market.  
• An additional $1.3 billion to the Reaching Home homelessness program, including $250 million over two years to address encampments by supporting rights-based community action plans that use a Housing First approach. This brings the total funding for the program to date to $5.3 billion.  
• The continuation of the existing $960 million Interim Housing Assistance Program to prevent homelessness amongst asylum claimants.  
• $4.3 billion over seven years to an Urban, Rural, and Northern Indigenous housing strategy. This is existing funding that the government had previously committed in its 2023 budget, to start in 2024-2025. 

These are important programs that housing advocates have long called for to address the escalating housing affordability crisis. While we welcome these announcements, they pale in comparison to the depth of need across the country. The total investment of $27.1 billion (including the new funding of $3.8 billion) directed toward affordability measures and addressing homelessness is not responsive to the scale of the housing affordability crisis. To take just two examples: Canada is currently losing 46,000 affordable units annually to rent increases, demolitions, and conversions, but the Canada Rental Protection Fund will prevent the loss of only 2,500 – just over five per cent – of those units. Similarly, to address the depth of housing need facing Indigenous Peoples living in urban, rural and northern areas, estimates range from $4.3 billion to $5.6 billion per year over ten years, but the government has committed only $600 million per year over seven years.

The promising news – measures that could meaningfully protect renters’ rights

Canadian Renters’ Bill of Rights 

One of the most promising announcements in Canada’s Housing Plan is the development of a Canadian Renters’ Bill of Rights. Renters across the country are facing soaring rent costs, few affordable options, and limited housing security. Without adequate protections against excessive rents, rent gouging, and eviction, renters are increasingly facing housing precarity and homelessness. Current renter protections are a patchwork and vary significantly between provinces and territories. At a minimum, the Renters’ Bill of Rights could help ensure all renters have the right to reasonable rents and protection from eviction, while helping to mitigate the ongoing loss of existing affordable homes when renters are evicted or displaced.   

To develop an effective Renters’ Bill of Rights, the federal government must engage with renter communities, organizations that represent them, and legal experts on renter protections to ensure that it reflects renters’ real-life experiences. The right to a reasonable rent is especially important given the low level of investment in direct housing affordability measures in Canada’s Housing Plan. In the absence of sufficient investments in non-market housing, most renters in Canada will continue living in private market buildings. With only five per cent of Canada’s housing stock owned by the public and non-profit sectors, housing prices are dictated by market forces. Effective rent regulation is essential to uphold renters’ rights. 

The Renters’ Bill of Rights could provide a crucial standard for every province and territory to strive towards. While this will require cooperation between different levels of government, it is not unprecedented. For example, over the course of 20 years after it was introduced by the federal government, the National Building Code was adopted by every province and territory as a standard for building design and construction. We are also encouraged that the federal government is looking to hold other levels of government accountable by making some housing funding conditional on provinces and territories adopting elements of the Renters’ Bill of Rights. When the federal government funds housing development, it is reasonable to expect that the housing it funds will be secure and affordable for the people who live in it.

Other supports for renters 

We are glad to see the federal government recognize the need for legal aid for renters, alongside support for organizations that raise awareness of renters’ rights through its new Tenant Protection Fund. However, $15 million over five years is not nearly enough to respond to the level of need facing renters, especially considering the limited resources currently available for renters facing displacement and discrimination across the country.  

We are also pleased to see the government introduce new rules to allow renters to decide if they would like their rental payment history to be taken into account for their credit score. This opt-in approach will help ensure that renters who are struggling to pay their rent on time due to the mounting housing affordability crisis are not negatively impacted.

The indifferent news – measures that will not address affordability

While it is encouraging that the government has recognized affordability and renters’ rights in its housing plan, those are disproportionately small parts of the overall strategy. In contrast, measures to incentivize the private market to build more housing comprise the vast majority of the plan. These include a little over $66.3 billion in grants, loans, and other supports for developers, and changes to zoning and permitting rules to make building quicker and cheaper. It also includes a freeze on the fees that municipalities can charge developers, a previously announced GST rebate for rental construction, and other tax breaks, all of which represent additional costs of lost tax revenue. These amounts together represent a much larger allocation than the $27.1 billion allocated to affordable housing and addressing homelessness.

In the absence of robust affordability requirements, new private market housing will not be affordable, especially for low- and moderate-income residents. Moreover, increasing supply does not meaningfully lower rents in existing homes. The supply approach is contingent on higher income residents moving into new higher-cost homes, freeing up their existing lower-cost homes to be passed on to low- and moderate-income residents. However, in the absence of effective rent regulation, there is nothing keeping those existing homes affordable. Even the  strongest proponents of the supply approach acknowledge that rent decreases spurred by new supply are negligible. Empirical studies have found that building supply “was so slow and had so little effect on providing housing to lower income tenants that it could not be pursued as a serious policy strategy” and “is not a meaningful method for producing affordable rental housing.”

In short, the government’s plan to address housing supply shortages in the private market will not meaningfully impact the affordability crisis. To address affordability, new construction must prioritize publicly-owned, non-profit, and co-operative homes. At the same time, new housing built by the private market must be subject to strict affordability requirements to justify public investment.

Unfortunately, the government’s housing plan does not signal that it intends for its significant investments in housing supply to provide affordability. On the contrary, the government noted that existing affordability requirements in the Apartment Construction Loan Program – which are already minimal, inadequate, and ineffective – will be made more “flexible.” In short, the bulk of the government’s plan is to incentivize developers to build more housing that will be unaffordable to most people in Canada.

What’s missing 

Leveraging public lands for affordable housing

We are glad to see the federal government launch a new Public Lands for Homes Plan, which aims to leverage publicly-owned lands for housing development, including by leasing lands to retain public ownership over the long term. However, it is critical that public lands and other assets be prioritized for non-market housing to maximize the use of public lands for housing that is truly affordable to communities in need. We are concerned that this new plan fails to do so, reinforcing the government’s overall focus on housing supply over affordability. However, it is encouraging that the government is proposing to prioritize non-market and student housing as part of its plan to convert underused federal offices.

 
Expanding the Canada Housing Benefit 

We are disappointed that Canada’s Housing Plan does not include additional investments in the Canada Housing Benefit (CHB), which provides low-income renters in the private market with funding to help them keep their homes. While rent supplements like the CHB can be a double-edged sword that allow landlords to increase rents in the absence of rent controls, they are also important short-term solutions that can help keep low-income renters housed in the midst of a housing affordability crisis. Paired with a strong Renters’ Bill of Rights, an expansion of the CHB could help protect affordability and security for many low-income renters across the country.

 
Addressing the financialization of housing

Canada’s Housing Plan includes minimal mention of the role that financialization has played in the housing crisis. In so far as the government is seeking to address the financialization of housing, it intends to consult on opportunities to limit the acquisition of single-family homes by large, corporate investors, with few details or clarity on what this will entail. However, financialization is a much more pervasive issue that threatens affordability and security across housing types. Beyond restricting the corporate acquisition of single-family homes, it is incumbent on the government to also address the growing speculative forces and increased role of financialized actors across the housing sector. In addition, the government should prioritize working closely with the National Housing Council, which recently wrapped up Canada’s first Review Panel to examine the impacts of the financialization of purpose-built rentals.

 
Advancing the right to housing 

Following the explicit focus of the National Housing Strategy (2017) and National Housing Strategy Act (2019) on advancing the right to adequate housing, we are disappointed that Canada’s Housing Plan makes minimal reference to the right to housing. Minimal support is included for the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate in the 2024 budget, while no additional support is provided for the National Housing Council or other organizations that support renters in claiming their right to housing. Considering the disproportionate impacts of the housing affordability crisis on low-income, racialized, and other marginalized communities, it is incumbent on the government to prioritize and maximize investments that will address the housing needs of those most impacted by the crisis.

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NATIONAL

• Federal government announces new measures for renters from upcoming budget  
  
  On March 27, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced measures from the upcoming federal budget to support renters, including a new $15 million Tenant Protection Fund to provide legal aid for renters, a Canadian Renters’ Bill of Rights to empower renters by requiring landlords to disclose a history of rental pricing, combatting renovictions, creating a standard lease, and measures to ensure that renters get credit for on-time rent payments. The government’s stated aim is to address the housing affordability crisis and ensure generational fairness in the rental housing market. However, many questions remain regarding the details, development, and implementation of the Renters’ Bill of Rights, whether $15 million will be adequate to support renters across the country, and whether consideration of renters’ rental history, as part of the credit for on-time rent payments measure, could have negative impacts on their credit scores. Read our response here. 
  
  
• Auditor General finds federal government has made little progress in improving First Nations housing
  
  In its latest report, Auditor General Karen Hogan found that Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) have made limited progress in improving housing in First Nations communities over the last twenty years. As of 2024, only 20 per cent of First Nations housing needs have been met, with insufficient homes being built and repaired, alongside long-standing issues like mould. Over the past five years, CMHC and ISC spent $3.8 billion to improve the housing situation in First Nations. However, this falls short of the estimated $44 billion required to address First Nations housing needs, alongside an additional $16 billion when factoring in population growth. The Auditor General previously reported on the government’s progress in improving First Nations Housing in 2003, 2006, and 2011, highlighting the government’s ongoing failure to address First Nations housing needs. The government must increase investments and work with First Nations to meet its goal of closing the First Nations housing gap by 2030.  
  
  
• Poll shows that more Canadians view homelessness as a national concern 
  
  The homelessness crisis has become an issue of concern for most Canadians. A new research poll indicates that a majority of Canadians view homelessness as a national concern, with two thirds of respondents describing homelessness as a major problem, and 71 per cent noting an increase in homelessness over the past three years. In terms of solutions, public support is strong for mental health support and temporary housing options. The majority of respondents also support offering incentives for developers to build affordable housing, devoting tax dollars to housing for people experiencing homelessness, and zoning changes to allow more units on standard lots.  

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ATLANTIC CANADA

NOVA SCOTIA 

• Nova Scotia Liberal Party introduces rent regulation legislation  
  
  In response to Nova Scotia’s housing crisis, the Liberal housing critic introduced two private members’ bills on March 5. The Rent Regulation Act proposes to extend the temporary provincial rent cap, which is currently set to end at the end of 2025, until the vacancy rate hits four per cent or higher, with annual reviews focusing on affordability and market conditions. Additionally, the Liberals introduced a bill to create an independent housing authority, as recommended by the Affordable Housing Commission, which aims to boost housing development, enhance quality, and maintain affordability.  

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CENTRAL CANADA

ONTARIO

• Toronto City Council Committee considers whether Hamilton renoviction by-law can work in Toronto
  
  In response to escalating rates of renovictions, the City of Toronto is looking to Hamilton’s new anti-renovictions bylaw as a potential solution. A motion was passed at the Planning and Housing Committee that directs staff to provide a report that analyses the Hamilton by-law, and how a similar approach would work in Toronto. In 2022, the number of formal renovation eviction applications filed by landlords (known as N13’s) tripled in Toronto, compared to 2015. This number only accounts for evictions carried out through the formal process and likely represents a fraction of informal renovictions taking place in the city. The Hamilton bylaw requires landlords to secure a building permit and engineer’s report laying out renovation plans and confirming that the unit must be vacant for renovations to proceed. The bylaw also imposes stricter requirements for landlords to support renter relocation and ensure they can return to the unit once renovations are complete at the same rental rate. Such bylaws offer promising opportunities to preserve affordable rental housing supply, while protecting current renters’ security of tenure.  
  
  
• Ontario Green Party introduces new legislation to protect tenants  
  
  On March 6, the Deputy Leader of the Ontario Green Party introduced the Keeping People Housed Act, which aims to protect renters in Ontario from rising rents and renovictions. The private members’ bill proposes extending rent control to all buildings (including those built after November 2018), reinstating vacancy control to limit rent hikes between tenancies, providing greater supports for renters facing renovictions, and ensuring replacement units for demolished affordable housing. It also suggests forming a Rental Task Force which would investigate issues related to above guideline rent increases, which have been on the rise in Ontario, as well as the creation of a rent registry. The Green Party criticized Ontario’s current rental system, noting minimal fines for landlords who violate regulations. CCHR sent a letter of support for the bill, noting that it would significantly expand protections for and uphold the rights of Ontario renters, while helping to preserve housing affordability. 
  
  
• Ontario risks losing federal funding for failure to meet affordable housing targets 
  
  Federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser has warned Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford that the province is at risk of losing $357 million in funding from the federal government, because it has failed to meet federal affordable housing targets, under a bilateral funding agreement. Minister Fraser has given the province until the end of the month to revise its proposed Action Plan in order to receive the funding, without the possibility of an extension. The current Action Plan proposes to only achieve 1,184 units out of the 19,660 affordable units required in the agreement by 2024-2025. Meanwhile, Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Paul Calandra, has described the possible withholding of funds as unfair and punitive. He pointed to current challenges in the economic landscape and Ontario’s focus on repairing its aging housing stock instead of focusing on building new supply to explain why current affordable housing targets are not being met.  
  

QUEBEC

• Montreal relaxes construction regulations for social housing  
  
  Three years ago, Montreal introduced a new bylaw requiring developers to include social, affordable, and family housing in new construction. Although the bylaw was intended to stimulate the development of affordable housing, its impact has been limited due to several factors. Namely, many developers opted to pay a penalty under the bylaw, which would go into an affordable housing fund, rather than include affordable units in their projects. Inflation and labour shortages have also had a negative impact, all of which have delayed the development of 600 social units. The city recently loosened the rules under the bylaw by removing the obligation for developers to contribute to the affordable housing fund for projects with between 20 and 150 units. The government said that this is a temporary measure put in place to address rising inflation and labour shortage challenges faced by developers. The hope is that it will incentivize developers to build more affordable, social and family housing under the by-law. Other city council members believe that easing red tape around construction is the most effective way to incentivize developers to build more affordable housing.  

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WESTERN CANADA

MANITOBA

• Canada and Manitoba announce rent supports for survivors of gender-based violence  
  
  On March 26, the federal and Manitoba governments announced an enhancement to the Canada Housing Benefit (CHB) to provide housing supports for survivors of gender-based violence, including women, children, and 2SLGBTQI+ people. The federal government is investing $13.7 million, which will be cost-matched by Manitoba over five years. Manitoba is the first province to co-design a CHB program for survivors of gender-based violence, which does not require income testing in the first year of receiving the benefit. This is crucial because it acknowledges that individuals fleeing violence may be experiencing financial abuse or face barriers to accessing other types of benefits due to complex family situations. In the absence of sufficient affordable housing options, this can lead to homelessness or hidden homelessness.  
  
  
• Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives calls for 10,000 social housing units in Manitoba 
  
  The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) released a report urging the Manitoba government to construct 10,000 social housing units within the next decade to meet the needs of low-income renters. Highlighting the inadequacy of relying solely on the private sector for affordable housing, the report suggests several strategies, including utilizing provincial downtown parking lots, converting vacant buildings into apartments, and introducing a tax credit for sales of rental properties to non-profits. The upcoming provincial budget is expected to address these recommendations, acknowledging the broader social benefits of reducing costs associated with policing and healthcare. 
  
  
• Winnipeg experiencing a spike in rental costs 
  
  A new report on the rental market in Canada shows Winnipeg experienced an alarming 26 per cent jump in one-bedroom rental costs over the past year. Despite rents in Winnipeg remaining at the lower end of Canada’s rental market, this significant rent increase strains affordability, with many households spending over 30 per cent of their income on housing and forced to make difficult spending decisions. Advocates call for creating more non-profit, cooperative, and non-market housing and implementing rent control measures to address the crisis of rising rents.  
  

saskatchewan

• Saskatoon’s housing crisis highlights need for more shelters and adequate housing  
  
  In Saskatoon, community groups and a city councilor are calling for more shelters and adequate housing in the city, as current shelters continue to be at capacity every night. This comes amid the cancellation of plans for a temporary shelter and push back against an existing emergency wellness center. Community concerns about safety and crime have intensified the debate. Advocates are calling for a balanced approach, emphasizing that while shelters are crucial, sustainable, affordable housing is the ultimate long-term solution to homelessness.  
  

British Columbia

• B.C. Green Party introduce new bill to protect renters 
  
  On February 29, the B.C. Green Party introduced the Residential Tenancy Amendment Act to make housing more affordable and protect renters by preventing landlords from unreasonably increasing rents when a unit becomes vacant. This measure aims to end profit-driven evictions and increase housing stability. It draws inspiration from successful vacancy control measures in places like Manitoba and Germany, which would be a significant step towards addressing the housing affordability crisis in B.C. 
  
  
• Vancouver city council takes steps towards preserving and expanding co-op housing 
  
  Vancouver city council is working to address the shortage of co-op housing by exploring options to preserve and expand the city’s co-op stock. Recognizing the importance of co-ops in providing affordable, family-sized units and fostering community, council directed staff to explore opportunities to build more co-op units on city-owned land and pilot new co-op models. This initiative aligns with ABC Vancouver’s election pledge to double the co-op housing stock, aiming to ensure long-term affordability and security for residents.
  
  
• Inclusive housing needed for Indigenous Peoples with diverse abilities in B.C. 
  
  The Aboriginal Housing Management Association (AHMA) recently published a report examining the barriers to housing access for Indigenous peoples with diverse abilities, including the lack of housing supports and a complex housing system that is difficult to navigate, which increases the risk of homelessness. Individuals with complex and concurrent mental health and substance use care needs face additional barriers and a higher risk of experiencing homelessness. The report provides 26 recommendations that emphasize the need for Indigenous-led housing solutions, collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous housing providers, enhanced support services, and the importance of culturally safe and inclusive care. 

Yesterday, the federal government announced measures from its upcoming 2024 budget which it says will “make the playing field fairer for renters.”

Creating a new Canadian Renters’ Bill of Rights 

Renters’ rights are a patchwork across Canada. Each province and territory has its own laws, and they vary dramatically from place to place. To take just two examples, different provincial laws provide vastly different protections – or more often, lack of protections – against evictions and excessive rent increases. 

It is high time that the federal government take a leadership role in establishing standards for fair, robust legal protections for renters everywhere in Canada. Today’s announcement is welcome, but the proof will be in the pudding. The government says that it will develop its bill of rights in partnership with provinces and territories. We hope that it will also work closely with renters and renter organizations to understand the real issues they face in the housing crisis. 

It is clear that the government needs the help. For example, it says that its bill of rights will “require landlords to disclose a clear history of apartment pricing so renters can bargain fairly.” That would be hugely beneficial in Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec, where current laws provide some protection against rent increases between tenancies. But in other provinces, deeply harmful “vacancy decontrol” policies allow landlords to raise rents between renters by any amount, regardless of what they previously charged. The government needs to consult with renters to ensure that the bill of rights includes effective protections such as ending vacancy decontrol. 

Only the provinces have the legal authority to amend residential tenancies laws, but a bill of rights would establish national standards for the provinces to meet. Done properly, a renters’ bill of rights has the potential to bring fair, robust protections to renters across Canada. 

Launching a new $15 million Tenant Protection Fund

Renters need legal support. As rents across the country climb out of control, more and more renters are struggling to pay the rent each month – and facing the threat of eviction when they fall short. Eviction cases are decided by tribunals whose proceedings can be hard for renters to understand and navigate – and which are not always set up to be fair. Legal representation can help level the playing field.  

Seven provinces and territories provide little or no legal aid for renters facing eviction. The other provinces provide some legal aid, but it’s often plagued by funding shortfalls and cuts. In every province and territory, most renters have to represent themselves in eviction proceedings. 

We are glad to see the federal government recognizing that legal aid for renters is important, but $15 million is a drop in the bucket that does not respond to the depth of need and the enormous number of evictions taking place across Canada.

Making sure renters get credit for on-time rent payments 

Finally, the federal government says that it will make sure that rental payment history is taken into account in renters’ credit scores. This is a problematic proposal. Although the government says that renters’ credit scores will improve when they pay their rent on time, we are in a housing and affordability crisis. More and more renters, through no fault of their own, are struggling to pay their rent on time. We urge the government to ensure that late or missed rent payments do not negatively impact renters’ credit scores. 

What’s missing

While it is encouraging to see greater federal leadership on renters’ rights and protections, these measures alone will not be enough to tackle the housing affordability crisis. As outlined in our federal pre-budget submission, significant investments are needed to build and preserve affordable housing across the country, prioritizing the public, non-profit, and cooperative housing sectors that provide deep affordability over the long term. Moreover, low-income and other marginalized renters need direct short-term support to maintain their housing in the midst of rapidly escalating costs. We also call on the government to adequately fund an Urban, Rural, and Northern Indigenous Housing Strategy, take concrete action to curb the growing financialization of housing, and support the implementation of the right to housing in Canada. 

We hope these initial measures announced for renters are the first among many new initiatives in the 2024 budget to ensure all people in Canada can live in secure and affordable homes.

In November 2023, the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) assessed Canada’s human rights record through its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, and delivered significant – and warranted – criticism on Canada’s nominal progress in tackling a range of critical human rights issues, including its housing and homelessness crisis. On March 18, the Government of Canada responded to these critiques by simply repeating existing promises.   

Meanwhile, advocates across the country have been raising the alarm for decades. The housing and homelessness crisis has reached the point where now a third of renters in Canada cannot afford their rent, many live in overcrowded and poorly maintained homes, and homelessness and encampments are on the rise. In the midst of this escalating crisis, the Canadian government has repeatedly failed to take meaningful action.  

This is not the first time the government has faced difficult questions over its human rights record. Every five years, the HRC reviews Canada’s human rights record, and has consistently called out Canada’s inaction on the human right to housing. For years, the HRC called on the federal government to establish a national housing strategy with tangible targets, significant investments, and commitments to take real action. 

Finally in 2017, following prolonged national advocacy supported by international pressure through the UPR process, Canada introduced a 10-year National Housing Strategy (NHS), and later passed the National Housing Strategy Act (NHSA) in 2019. At the time, advocates celebrated the NHSA’s recognition of housing as a fundamental human right. However, the NHS committed to ensuring that only 540,000 households in need have affordable, adequate housing.  

This target pales in comparison to the depth of need across the country: 1.5 million households are currently living in unaffordable, overcrowded, and/or dilapidated housing, and 235,000 people experience homelessness each year. The government has failed to meet even its own strategy’s insufficient goals.  

In the absence of meaningful action, Canada’s housing and homelessness crisis has only gotten worse, and those in greatest need – women, Indigenous Peoples, newcomers, racialized communities, people with disabilities, seniors, 2SLGBTQI+ people, and people experiencing homelessness – continue to face the worst outcomes.  

Alongside the UPR’s ongoing critiques of Canada’s inaction, the National Housing Council – a government body tasked to assess the NHS’s effectiveness – released a scathing report last year, calling for the strategy’s complete overhaul. The report noted that despite committing over $70 billion through the NHS, Canada is losing affordable housing faster than it is creating it: for every affordable home built under the NHS, two are lost. Moreover, most housing being built under the NHS is not affordable to those in greatest need, due in part to significant financing going to the private sector – which has consistently failed to produce deeply affordable homes – in addition to flawed affordability requirements that ultimately produce unaffordable homes.  

Meanwhile, in its most recent Fall Economic Statement, Canada announced an additional $15 billion for private sector rental construction, alongside funding for only 7,000 new non-market – public, non-profit, and co-operative – homes. Experts estimate that Canada requires one million such homes in the next decade to meet the current depth of housing need and address homelessness.  

The federal government – alongside the provinces, territories, and municipalities – continues to prioritize building new housing supply with inadequate or outright absent affordability requirements. This approach relies on the theory that building new unaffordable housing frees up affordable housing for those in need. Studies have shown that this approach does not improve housing affordability (especially in the short-term) and may actually raise the cost of existing homes.  

Yesterday, Canada responded to the HRC by only adopting the most vague of its recommendations to address housing and homelessness. What’s more, Canada refused to adopt any of the HRC’s specific recommendations to fully implement and strengthen the NHSA. Instead, it simply repeated its existing, inadequate targets, without acknowledging that it is failing to achieve even those targets. 

Following years of inaction and an escalating crisis, Canada had the chance to finally prove itself as a housing leader on the international stage – especially as it bids for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council – and begin to take its commitment to realize the right to housing seriously. Instead, it has once again chosen to ignore its responsibilities to realize the rights of Canadians and continues to fan the flames of a devastating crisis.

The lack of affordable rental housing across the country has resulted in a crisis in many Canadian cities, especially for lower-income renters who face increasing difficulties securing a home they can afford. Despite growing attention paid to this issue, little is currently known about the scale and scope of the existing deeply affordable housing stock in Canada, or about changes taking place at the low-end of the private rental market, which are the most affordable private housing options available to residents.

The project produced an online tool called the Low-end of Market Rental (LEMR) Housing Monitor, which integrates and aggregates existing data related to the loss of units and the displacement of people living in deeply affordable rental housing in urban areas. The project will also evaluate the potential to use these datasets to produce a modelled estimate of how the supply and location of deeply affordable market rental housing is changing over time.

Data has been brought in from various sources including census data, administrative data from local governments and data from community organizations. The goal is to provide accessible, centralized data that can enrich evidence-based decision-making in housing across Canada.

The LEMR Housing Monitor can be used by policymakers, urban planners, service providers, and community advocates to actively intervene on issues related to housing supply and to monitor the impact of their housing programs and policies. In this way, the tool can empower and equip decision-makers with the best information to make data-driven decisions and address gaps in our understanding of rental housing trends. 

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Project background 

The Low-end of Market Rental (LEMR) Housing Monitor is funded by CMHC’s Housing Supply Challenge, a fund aimed at creating solutions to overcoming barriers to the creation of new housing supply in Canada. The focus of the data-driven round of the challenge is on improving access to data so that it can be utilized in important housing decisions. The Housing Supply Challenge is one way in which Canada’s National Housing Strategy is promoting informed decision-making throughout government.

In the absence of an adequate supply of social and non-profit housing, it is the “low end” of the private rental market where the majority of lower-income renters must seek housing, and it is this supply that appears to be declining the fastest. Deeply affordable rental housing, or low-end of market rentals, represents a critical component of the housing spectrum, providing homes to lower income households where equity-deserving groups are disproportionately represented.

In a 2020 study, housing policy expert Steve Pomeroy found that from 2011 to 2016, for every new affordable unit of housing created in Canada through government funded programs, Canada lost 15 existing affordable private market rental units. Without a baseline understanding of the current state of affordable housing stock in major cities, and no way to monitor change over time, it is currently impossible for decision-makers to actively intervene on issues related to housing supply and to monitor the impact of housing programs and policies. Although some data on these matters exists, it tends to be scattered in various (and sometimes unknown) locations across Canada’s urban and rural municipalities. There is no central point where this information is stored, systematically organized, and shared.

The LEMR Housing Monitor tool was developed as a response to this gap, and will provide a sophisticated tool serving as a central point to access trustworthy data on deeply affordable private market units. The project will also identify possible data gaps in the six urban centres, and assess where the collection of additional and new data may be necessary.

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Acknowledgements

The LEMR Housing Monitor would not have been possible without the contributions of dozens of organizations and advisors across Canada. We thank them for their invaluable contributions and intrinsic roles in establishing this tool. 

Meet our advisors.

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The Low-End of Market Rental (LEMR) project received funding from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) under the Housing Supply Challenge. However, the views expressed are the personal views of the author and CMHC accepts no responsibility for them. 

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Toronto, ON – March 12, 2024 – A new data mapping tool launched today, called the Low-end of Market Rental (LEMR) Housing Monitor. The tool presents critical information on the affordable “low-end” of the private rental housing stock in six urban regions across Canada: Calgary, Halifax, Greater Montreal Area, Greater Toronto Area, Metro Vancouver Area, and Winnipeg.

Until now, not enough was known about the existing stock of deeply affordable rental homes in cities across Canada, making it difficult for decision-makers to develop and evaluate policies and programs that effectively tackle the housing affordability crisis.

“Millions of people across Canada are impacted by a lack of affordable rental housing, and renters with lower incomes are facing especially alarming challenges securing homes they can afford,” says Annie Hodgins, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights (CCHR). “We know that decision-makers across Canada are very concerned about the escalating affordable housing crisis, and they are searching for solutions. The LEMR Housing Monitor will equip them with the data they need to make impactful decisions when it comes to preserving the few affordable homes that still exist, and increasing the supply of housing that is affordable to people with lower and middle incomes.  

By presenting data from federal, provincial and municipal sources that have been integrated into a single tool for the first time, the LEMR Housing Monitor will help fill knowledge gaps and uncover key trends impacting affordability. It can be used by policymakers, urban planners, housing providers, service providers and housing advocates to enrich evidence-based decision-making in housing across Canada.

“By integrating data from dozens of federal, provincial and municipal sources, the LEMR Housing Monitor provides us with important context and a deeper understanding of trends in affordability than any one data source could,” says Megan Earle, CCHR’s Data Scientist. “This is a one-of-a-kind tool that provides insight into housing trends in a way we haven’t seen until now.”

The LEMR Housing Monitor features interactive maps that display data related to characteristics of the affordable housing stock within a defined area including the number of affordable units, types of units (i.e. market vs. non-market), and vacancy rate. The maps also include layers of information about renter households and building and neighbourhood characteristics (e.g. eviction rates), which provide additional context to the housing stock data and insight into regional differences. A date filter can be applied to observe how the data changes over time.

Initial insights gleaned from the tool include that less than half of bachelor and one-bedroom rental units are affordable for one-person households in all of the six regions studied. The tool has also revealed that between 2006-2021, the percentage of rental homes that are affordable to one-person households decreased between 8 per cent and 54 per cent across these regions.

“Anecdotally, we’ve heard that the number of affordable rental homes is diminishing and that they are increasingly unavailable in central urban areas,” says Daniel Liadsky, Managing Director of Purpose Analytics. “The LEMR Housing Monitor will help to translate anecdotes into evidence by articulating the magnitude of this issue and identifying where it is most acute.”

“This tool is more than a data bank; it represents a significant shift in how we approach housing decisions,” says Marlene Coffey, CEO of the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association (ONPHA). “With government and cross-sector partners, we can turn numbers into meaningful action, safeguarding our vital community housing supply and strategically investing in housing needs across the continuum.”

The LEMR Housing Monitor was developed by the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights (CCHR), Purpose Analytics, the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association, and R and Shiny Developer Sharla Gelfand.

Visit the LEMR Housing Monitor:

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About the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights (CCHR)
The Canadian Centre for Housing Rights (CCHR) is Canada’s leading organization working to advance the right to housing. For over 35 years, CCHR has worked at the intersection of human rights and housing. We do this by serving renters to help them stay housed, providing education and training about housing rights, and advancing rights-based housing policy through research, policy development, advocacy and law reform.

About Purpose Analytics
Purpose Analytics works to build a data-informed non-profit sector, by supporting non-profit organizations to use data to support decision-making and communicate impact, and cultivating a network of people in the non-profit sector who work with data.

About the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association
Founded in 1988, the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association (ONPHA) is an independent association funded and directed by its members. ONPHA leads, unites and supports a strong community-based affordable housing sector that helps to build vibrant, healthy and diverse communities for all Ontarians.

About Sharla Gelfand, R and Shiny Developer
Sharla is a freelance R and Shiny developer and a statistician. Their work specializes in developing tools that enable easier access to data and replacing manual, repetitive work with repeatable, reproducible, and future-proof processes.

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Media contact:

Shelley Buckingham
Director of Communications, Canadian Centre for Housing Rights
Email: media [at] housingrightscanada.com

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