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. 

Recommendations to build and preserve affordable housing and uphold human rights

To inform the development of its 2025 budget, the federal government is holding a series of consultations to gather ideas and input from the public. The 2025 budget comes in the midst of deep social and economic turmoil across the country, which has been magnified by a trade war with the United States. Meanwhile, we continue to face an escalating housing and homelessness crisis, which is disproportionately impacting communities already facing barriers to socioeconomic justice and equity. Below, we outline the current context in Canada, our recommendations for the 2025 federal budget, and ongoing advocacy opportunities to urge the government to take an evidence- and human rights-based approach to tackle the housing and homelessness crisis. 

The crisis in Canada 

Across the country, renters are facing increasingly precarious conditions, including excessive rents, unfair evictions, renovictions, demovictions, disrepair, discrimination, and many other issues. While rental housing supply and vacancy rates are increasing across the country, this has not translated into greater affordability, as new units are too expensive for low- and moderate-income renters and are not leading to meaningful reductions in rent prices. Instead, rents continue to rise year-over-year. Excessive rent increases, demolitions and conversions mean we are not only losing affordable housing faster than we can build it, we are also seeing an alarming increase in homelessness. In response, some provincial and municipal governments are taking misguided approaches that criminalize people experiencing homelessness, rather than building and protecting affordable housing and providing necessary health, income, and other socioeconomic supports.  

When renters have safe, secure, and affordable homes, they have stronger social and economic outcomes, from better physical and mental health to greater productivity and economic participation. From both a moral and fiscal perspective, building and protecting affordable housing – and the people who live there – is paramount to addressing the rising rates of housing precarity, displacement, and homelessness across the country. 

It was promising to see an ongoing focus on the housing and homelessness crisis throughout the 2025 federal election campaign, including recognition of the active role that all levels of government must play to tackle the crisis. To ensure a healthy, equitable, and sustainable future for all, the federal government must prioritize those most impacted by the housing and homelessness crisis: renters and people experiencing homelessness. 

Solving the crisis 

In our recent submission to the first 2025 federal pre-budget consultation held by the Standing Committee on Finance (FINA), we highlighted five key areas requiring urgent and sustained government action to ensure that everyone in Canada has a safe, secure, and affordable place to call home.  

1. Provide immediate support to renters and people experiencing homelessness by:

• Increasing and expanding the Canada Housing Benefit 
• Exploring the development of a permanent portable housing benefit 
• Expanding and enhancing the Reaching Home program 
• Upholding the rights of encampment residents by aligning federal funding with a human rights-based approach 
  

2. Protect renters from excessive rents and unfair evictions by: 

• Strengthening the Blueprint for the Renters’ Bill of Rights 
• Reporting on renter protection requirements under the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund 
• Renewing and maximizing funding through the Tenant Protection Fund 
  

3. Build and protect deeply affordable housing by: 

• Prioritizing and maximizing investments in the community housing sector 
• Launching an Indigenous-led Urban, Rural, and Northern Indigenous Housing Strategy 
• Enforcing strong affordability requirements for access to federal funding 
  

4. Combat the financialization of housing by: 

• Aligning federal housing policies and investments with a human rights-based approach 
• Facilitating improved data collection on property ownership, rental housing prices, tenure details, and evictions 
  

5. Uphold housing as a human right by: 

• Setting clear targets, timelines, monitoring, and reporting mechanisms to end homelessness and housing need 
• Ensuring federal funding prioritizes those in greatest housing need 
• Providing opportunities for meaningful engagement with people with lived experience to support the development, implementation, and evaluation of housing policies and programs 

Ongoing advocacy opportunities 

We are continuing to engage closely with our federal contacts and sector partners to urge the government to adopt evidence- and rights-based solutions to the housing and homelessness crisis in the 2025 federal budget. Following the initial FINA consultation, we encourage individuals and organizations to participate in the second pre-budget consultation held by the Department of Finance, by completing the questionnaire and/or sending in a formal submission by August 28, 2025. We welcome individuals and organizations to reiterate and amplify the recommendations outlined in our pre-budget submission to help hold the government accountable to meeting the needs of those most impacted by the housing and homelessness crisis. 

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