Recommendations to Build and Protect Truly Affordable Housing
To address the growing housing and homelessness crisis across Canada, the federal government is creating Build Canada Homes, a new housing agency responsible for building affordable housing and modernizing the construction industry. In August 2025, the government released a Market Sounding Guide to gather feedback from housing sector stakeholders on how Build Canada Homes should operate and support the development of affordable housing. Below, we outline our key recommendations to ensure that Build Canada Homes can effectively tackle the housing and homelessness crisis by taking an evidence- and human rights-based approach.
Prioritizing affordable housing
We welcome Build Canada Homes’ focus on affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families, including partnerships with non-market community housing developers and providers such as Indigenous, non-profit, co-operative, and public housing. This is critical to ensure those most impacted by the housing and homelessness crisis have access to housing that meets their needs and that public funding is directed toward the public good.
We strongly support the Market Sounding Guide’s principle that private investors do not disproportionately benefit from public investments. Over-reliance on the private sector has failed to produce housing that is affordable and accessible to those in greatest need. At the same time, fiscal and regulatory incentives have fueled the financialization of housing. Financialization refers to the treatment of housing as a commodity and investment vehicle to maximize profits rather than as a fundamental human right. Financialization has led to rising rents, poor maintenance and more evictions, disproportionately impacting low-income, racialized and other marginalized communities.
In line with a human rights-based approach, it is also encouraging to see that Build Canada Homes aims to align funding with housing outcomes, including affordability. The National Housing Strategy Act formally established Canada’s commitment to progressively realize the right to housing. This includes setting clear targets, timelines, monitoring and reporting mechanisms to end homelessness and core housing need in the shortest time possible by committing the maximum of available resources and utilizing all appropriate means.
Taking a rights-based approach
In our recent submission to the Build Canada Homes consultation, we highlight three key areas that the federal government should prioritize to ensure Build Canada Homes meets the needs of those most impacted by the housing and homelessness crisis.
1. Prioritize and maximize investments in the community housing sector by:
- Setting clear, ambitious targets for community housing investments.
- Prioritizing community housing providers and developers for access to financing and other tools to increase their capacity for large-scale affordable housing projects.
- Maximizing funding for community housing providers to maintain the current stock of community housing and acquire private market rental housing.
2. Uphold all elements of the right to adequate housing by:
- Restricting access to federal funding to housing projects that commit to long-term affordability based on household incomes, not market forces.
- Maximizing funding to support new and existing rental buildings to meet high habitability and climate resilience standards, while upholding affordability and security of tenure.
- Embedding a “For Indigenous, By Indigenous” approach to ensure equitable access to financing and other tools for Indigenous-led housing projects.
- Setting clear, ambitious targets for federally funded housing projects that meet the needs of communities facing disproportionate rates of housing precarity and homelessness.
- Prioritizing housing developments near vital community services.
3. Commit to robust monitoring and accountability mechanisms by:
- Setting clear targets, timelines, monitoring and reporting mechanisms to ensure Build Canada Homes is focused on ending homelessness and core housing need in the shortest time possible.
- Providing opportunities for meaningful engagement with people with lived experience of housing precarity and homelessness.
Ongoing advocacy opportunities
We continue to engage closely with federal contacts on our recommendations. Together with sector partners, we are urging the government to adopt evidence- and rights-based solutions to the housing and homelessness crisis through Build Canada Homes. The government has also committed to providing ongoing engagement opportunities, with a focus on Indigenous partners.
We will monitor updates on the launch of Build Canada Homes over the coming weeks and months. We welcome individuals and organizations to reiterate and amplify our recommendations to ensure Build Canada Homes prioritizes the development and preservation of truly affordable housing through a human rights-based approach.