“Homelessness & Affordability Crisis”

The aging of America means more old people on fixed incomes are overwhelmed by the high cost of housing and other financial shocks; ‘not seen since the Great Depression’

NAPLES, Fla.—Judy Schroeder was living a stable retirement in this affluent Florida enclave. Then her apartment building was sold to a new owner during the pandemic and she lost her part-time job working at a family-owned liquor store.

What followed was a swift descent into homelessness.

Faced with a rent increase of more than $500 a month, Schroeder, who had little savings and was living month-to-month on Social Security, moved out and started couch surfing with friends and acquaintances. She called hundreds of other landlords in Naples and southwest Florida but failed to find anything more affordable. She applied for a low-income housing voucher. She began eyeing her 2004 Pontiac Grand Am as a last resort shelter.

Homeless encampments have been multiplying across Ontario since the pandemic, but experts say this visible symptom of the national housing crisis has been a long time coming.

With limited shelter space, a lack of social housing, increasing cost of home ownership and ballooning rents, more and more people are left with few options but to pitch a tent in a public space.

But how did we get here? And what can be done?

After a summer spent refocusing his government on the issue of housing affordability, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are still less trusted on the file than the Conservatives and the New Democrats, exclusive new polling numbers indicate.

According to a survey conducted by Nanos Research for CTV News Channel’s Power Play with Vassy Kapelos, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives and Jagmeet Singh’s NDP are the most trusted federal parties when it comes to addressing skyrocketing housing costs.

No one runs away with this poll which may indicate the Uniparty is held in low esteem.

Housing affordability is unlikely to return to Toronto anytime soon, even in the event of a recession on par with one of the worst economic downturns in the province’s history, according to a new report from Desjardins’ leading economists.

The report outlines three possible outcomes for the future of the city’s housing market, including the worst-case scenario, which looks at a “1990s-style Ontario recession” that would drive average home values down by 16 per cent by the end of next year and 30 per cent by the end of 2025.

Those declines would be in addition to the housing correction that has already pushed prices down across the GTA.

The headline at the Daily Mail was eye-catching: “Squatters take over Wyoming city: Vagrants leave millions of dollars worth of damage to motel and 500lbs of human feces in downtown area – as Casper fights off a homeless invasion.” It was an image at odds with how we think of Wyoming; that is, a clean, naturally beautifully conservative state. But the homeless plague is everywhere, and the situation in Casper reminds us that most of today’s homeless are not just ordinary people down on their luck; they are dysfunctional drug addicts who are the inevitable result of 60 years of leftist drug policies.

Housing is an emotional issue. The concept of home evokes security, well-being and belonging. So it’s no surprise that housing debates have become politically charged as housing affordability has eroded. This can also evoke radical proposals for change.

Some people argue that we can’t rely on the private sector to make housing affordable again for the middle class. They argue that adding more “luxury apartments” doesn’t move the needle on affordability. In their eyes we need more public housing — a lot more.

What’s behind Canada’s housing crisis? Decades of policy failures, says former deputy PM

Canada’s housing crunch is the result of decades of poor policy stemming from the federal government leaving the issue to the provinces in the 1980s, according to one former deputy prime minister.

Former deputy prime minister Sheila Copps said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg that when Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) was involved in building housing, there was a significant amount of national investment in housing as well as housing policy and strategy.

Acres of decrepit crime and drug ridden high rise eyesores. That’s what I think of when I hear the words government housing.

MISSOULA, Mont.—This city boasts more than 400 acres of parks, many of which line the roaring Clark Fork River. Recently, they have become full of homeless people.

Some 600 people without homes live in the Northern Rockies college town, triple the number of a decade ago, many of them in tents in city parks. Their presence has sown growing anger among residents who say the parks have become dirty and unsafe.

Shannone Hart said a group of teens she works with saw homeless people fighting in a park and that she moved in June from a house near an encampment along the Clark Fork.