“Homelessness & Affordability Crisis”

In a very civil tone, the mayor of Windsor, Ont., is asking the fresh faces in the Mark Carney-led Liberal government to butt out of city planning. Mayor Drew Dilkens especially wants to see an end to Trudeau-era affordable housing mandates from Ottawa that don’t serve his community.

“They were just hell-bent on putting forward this really left-principled version of what housing should be,” Drew says of the conditions imposed on cities under the $4-billion housing accelerator fund launched in 2023 by then federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser.

Realtor Barry Lebow specializes in helping seniors downsize — moving out of the family homes they’ve lived in for decades to a smaller place that’s a better fit for their aging lifestyle.

From the outside, that might look like the natural progression: feeding a healthy bit of turnover into the housing supply as move-up buyers seek their own family home.

But the reality is a bit different when it comes time to sell, Lebow, who works in the Greater Toronto Area, said in an interview.

About 100 households awaiting an eviction decision over a two-year rent strike say they rejected their landlord’s final settlement offer because it would “silence” them if future issues were to arise.

The tenants at 71, 75 and 79 Thorncliffe Park Dr. stopped paying landlord Starlight Investments in 2023, claiming the landlord purposely left their apartments in disrepair and gave them unfair, unaffordable above-guideline rent increases (AGIs). The landlord said the AGIs were necessary to cover improvements to the building.

When settlement talks ordered by the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) broke down at the end of March, the landlord continued pursuing eviction, with hearings taking place over four days in June. A decision could come within weeks or months.

This is the heart of Mosqueteria land. It will be interesting to see how the Board rules.

The Thorncliff Park neighborhood in Toronto, ON, Canada has the most densely populated Muslim community in North America. Entire condo units have been converted into small mosques!

TT/asimafsar_ pic.twitter.com/EbLRe6lso0

— sammy 2.0 (@Sammy_canada2) July 18, 2025

Roughly 60 per cent of Canadian mortgage holders will face higher monthly payments when their loans come up for renewal in 2025 and 2026, according to a new Bank of Canada report.

In the latest staff analytical note, the bank says that although mortgage interest rates are expected to gradually decline, most borrowers will still see payment increases relative to their current contracts — many of which were signed during periods of lower interest rates.

The report estimates that in 2025, homeowners renewing their mortgages will see an average increase of 10 per cent in their monthly payments compared to December 2024 levels.

Brent Secondiak served as a front-line cop in the southern Alberta city of Medicine Hat for 25 years, and understands the futility of dismantling homeless encampments and otherwise dislodging itinerants who decide to bunk down in public spaces.

“We used to call it leaf-blowing … you just scatter the leaves, and the leaves end up somewhere else,” he says.

Toronto real estate is finding out it’s not invincible, after all. New Equifax data reveals Toronto CMA’s mortgage delinquency rate surged in Q1 2025. While rising delinquencies are a national story, this is very different from the normalization seen in other Canadian markets. Over the past few years, Toronto’s delinquency rate has more than tripled and reached a multi-decade high.

But Toronto’s a 3rd World Dumpster surely that counts for something!